Famous Last Words
by Miz Turwaithiel
Summary: “I heard you were going to Portland,” the werewolf says bluntly, leaning against the cycle. “I’m coming with you.” Bella's transformation goes wrong, and Edward and Jacob must work together to find her before the Volturi do. Edward/Jacob. Completed.
1. i'm incomplete

**Famous Last Words**

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_A story about homosexuality and murder and angst._

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**i. chapter one**

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"She's been on a killing spree in Portland," Alice said.

Outside, the rain gutted in the dark like a candle, a brief lull in the steady beat of raindrops. Edward dropped his head down into his hands, massaging his temples. "God_dammit_," he muttered.

Alice's eyes were sympathetic. _I'm sorry, Edward._

"We'll stop her," she said out loud.

"This is killing me," he replied, almost to himself. His words fade into the heavy downpour. "I can't—I loved her, Alice."

"I know, Edward, I know," she replied, moving around the table and wrapping her long, cold arms around him. _We made a mistake in turning her_, she thought.

Edward knew that. They never said it out loud but they never needed to, not when he could pick up a flick of a thought, a wordless accusation. He _knew_ that.

_I'm so sorry_, Alice thought.

He stood up abruptly, dislodging himself from her embrace. "We have to find her," he said, steadfastly ignoring her pitying gaze and staring out the windows, even though there wasn't anything to see. There were only the raindrops, streaking across the glass and lost.

-

Saying something went wrong, that someone made a wrong choice, that it was destiny or worse luck—well, that's true. The truth can be anything, though, depending who's telling it.

Someone made a mistake, and this truth begins with that.

-

The werewolf is waiting for Edward when he goes down the street in his Volvo, sitting on the old motorcycle that he fixed with Bella. Edward catches a brief hint of her scent, just a whisper, and the familiar hunger churns in him before he clamps it down.

He pulls over and gets out of the car. The werewolf's stench, like wet fur and rotting plants, diesel fuel and sunburned skin, helps mask any traces of Bella. Edward schools his face into impassiveness and walks over to him, hands in the pockets of his jacket.

"I heard you were going to Portland," the werewolf says bluntly, leaning against the cycle. "I'm coming with you."

"I don't recall inviting you," Edward says, absently tuning into the signal of the werewolf's mind. _Hate_, his mind says, a low-level buzzing in the back of his brain. _Fucking cold bloodsucker. I hate him._

"Doesn't matter."

Bella loved this boy, this werewolf once. Maybe the part of him she'd loved had died along with her.

_She should have picked the goddamn wolf_, Edward thought, looking him over. The boy had made her laugh. The boy had made her human, which was more than Edward could claim.

"I can drive you," Edward says. "Unless you want to motorcycle there, that is."

The werewolf looks at him impassively, but there's something in his expression. Be it distaste, hatred, or something else, Edward's not sure. His thoughts are spacklings of words and pictures: _cars, interstates curving over the miles, hate, I cannot understand how Bella could have loved him, hate_…

Edward shoves his hands deeper into his pockets and stares the werewolf down. "Are you coming?"

"Just let me drive my bike back," the werewolf says, equally mild. Bella's change has, in turn, changed the both of them. Like it or not, that means they are forced to have something in common.

"You don't mind leaving now?"

"The sooner the better." _Hate. I can't believe I'm working with this monster._

"Same goes for you," Edward says under his breath, turning and walking towards his Volvo.

-

The drive is, to say the least, awkward, what with the hatred and murderous thoughts and the weight of shared secrets.

Jacob eventually falls asleep. Edward envies him that escape.

-

Portland is cold and rainy. Portland is much the same as it was when Edward last visited it.

"Fuckin' depressing," Jacob says, and for once Edward can agree with him. He gets out of the car and into the radius of a city full of people's thoughts. The hum of a million people's minds pushes in on him, momentarily overwhelming him.

He can hear the werewolf's mind clearest of all. _Fuck, is he all right? No, if I ask him, he'll probably think I actually care. Can't have that._

Then. _If he keels over and dies, I'm in this alone._

Edward shoves away all the minds, including the werewolf's, and manages to straighten up, fighting down nausea and a surprising surge of compassion for the boy beside him.

"You all right?" the werewolf asks gruffly.

"Yes," Edward replies, taking a few weak steps forward. When he nearly falls, the werewolf reaches out and puts a steadying hand on his shoulder.

Even through his jacket, the touch burns. Edward jerks away. "Don't," he says.

The werewolf just lifts his hands, raises his eyebrows, and walks past him without looking back.

Edward shoves all the thoughts away again, and follows.

-

The thing is, the boy—the werewolf—Jacob—he can smell her, and Edward can't anymore. Not since she was turned. Part of her immunities to vampire abilities, now.

"She left," he says, voice tight with disappointment. "Not too long ago, but she's nowhere in the city now."

Edward looks at him, studying the strong lines of his profile, the downward pull of his eyebrows. "Do you know where she went?"

Jacob shrugs, and says, "East."

"Do you have anything better to do this weekend?" Edward asks.

Jacob looks back at him, and for a moment, he almost smiles.

-

They go onwards.

-

Even with their combined hatred, they can't sustain the silence forever, and eventually Jacob switches on the radio and finds a classic rock station. He slumps down in the passenger seat of the Volvo and closes his eyes.

Edward just listens for a bit. Then he joins in with the songs he knows, and hums along to the ones he doesn't. The miles are lost behind them, scattered with gasoline and the slowly dissolving scent of the girl they once loved.

"Don't fear the reaper," Edward sings. "Come on baby, don't fear the reaper."

Jacob's eyes flutter in his sleep, and in his mind, a slow wash of contentment blossoms. There are no words involved in it, but the meaning is clear.

Edward almost smiles.

-

They get out of the car somewhere along a flat, desolate part of the highway. Jacob's face is drawn. "I lost her scent," he says. The he punches the side of the car. "_Fuck!_"

Edward eyes the fist-sized dent in his car and decides not to comment. "I'm going to phone Alice," he says. "She might have something."

"You do that," Jacob mutters. _Useless pretty-boy vampire. _

Edward barely restrains his scowl at that, and turns away, listening to the shrill ringtone of Alice's cell.

"Edward," she says, sounding pleased. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, but I have a favor to ask. Can you see anything regarding Bella?"

Even over the phone, he could almost hear her thoughts racing. "Nothing. I'm sorry, Edward. I'll phone you when I get something, okay? I love you."

He disconnects the calls and turns to Jacob, who is fuming, dwarfing the car. "I'm sure you heard that," Edward says.

"What do we do now?" Jacob asks hopelessly, his long, tangled black hair blowing in the wind.

Edward watches him, and wonders again why Bella loved him. Maybe whatever part of him that drew her is hidden away now, buried under betrayal and hundreds of tiny cracks in his sanity. Maybe that part isn't gone. "I don't know," he says.

Jacob looks utterly broken. "Why did you have to change her?" he asks, looking directly at Edward. "Why did you do this to her?"

_She wanted it,_ Edward wants to say. _She _chose_ this._

But that would be cowardly, and it would (almost) be wrong. So he looks at the pavement of the road, and he feels his eyes sting. "I didn't know this would happen," he says. His voice is a close approximation of a sob.

"Yeah, well, no shit," Jacob says.

"I…" All his words are hollow and meaningless.

Jacob watches his scornfully. "You can't even justify it, can you? Fucking vampire. You screwed it up."

_You screwed us all up._

"I know," Edward replies.

There isn't really anything you can say to that, although Jacob's thoughts make an effort, sifting through several options before he finally says out loud, "Well, we might as well keep going east." _Asshole._ "You can stay here if you want," he adds.

At least with Jacob, his thoughts match his words. Edward gets into the car.

-

And so they go on.

-

"Why isn't your vampire family helping?" Jacob asks, halfway to the middle of nowhere, out of the blue.

Edward drums his fingers on the steering wheel and slows down so the engine won't melt. They're making good time, fast time, across the country and universe. "Alice is helping. The rest of them think I should just let the Volturi handle it."

"Why?"

"They think that my emotional attachments to Bella are too strong," Edward says carefully. "That I won't be able to…to do what's necessary."

Jacob studies him. "Will you?" he asks, detached.

Edwards shrugs. "We'll see."

Jacob shakes his head, and after a moment, says with suppressed venom, "You once told me you loved her. More than life, or undead-ness, or whatever you're doing. And now you're going to kill her because you screwed up in making her one of you." His eyes are blazing, body radiating heat, and for a moment it looks like he's going to leap into his wolf skin. For a moment Edward envies him that kind of passion, all fire and fury and action.

"I'm going to kill her because she's gone on rampages through all the major cities on the Pacific, and now she's starting on the east coast," Edwards says.

"And then what?" Jacob spits. "Are you just going to go back to Forks and—"

"I'm going to kill myself," Edward says calmly. "Or I'll find someone who will do it for me. You can, if you want. I know you think about it often enough."

Jacob is silent. Then, after a long moment, like the space in between a heartbeat, he sits back and laughs unsteadily. "Sure. I'll do you a favor and rip your head off. Why not?"

"Thank you," Edward says quietly.

_I don't want to kill you,_ Jacob thinks. _I just want you dead. Sometimes I want to be dead. Sometimes I wish Bella were dead. Sometimes I wish none of us had been born at all_.

"That's deep," Edward says caustically.

Jacob glares at him, but turns on the radio. It's playing something by the Smiths – _I'm not the man you thought I was; oh, pretty girls make graves_. "You want me to kill you right now?"

Something has shifted in their bond. It's not any easier to work through, but it's newer and for now, that's better.

"Turn it up," Edward says instead. The music is sharp, angry—_oh, pretty girls make graves._

Edward gets a phone call from Alice a day later, when they're sitting in a diner, drinking watery coffee. Edward's slowly and methodically added creamer, until the cup is milky, and has just started on sugar. They're both tired. Both worn out from chasing shadows.

They exchange glances when the phone rings, and Edward pulls it out of his jacket and flips it open. "Hello?"

"I've got a lead for you," Alice says, sounding unhappy about it. "New York, New York. She wants to kill other girls. The younger and prettier, the better. You can probably catch her if you move fast enough."

Edward puts his head down on the formica tabletop and sighs. "Thank you, Alice."

"You know what they say. Go ask Alice." Her voice is still flat, though, and Edward remembers that Bella used to Alice's friend, too. "I'll talk to you later, Edward. I love you."

When Edward closes the phone, Jacob is watching him with interest. "Got something?" he inquires.

"New York." Edward lifts his head. "We should get moving."

"New York?" Jacobs asks. "What's she doing there?"

"She's planning on killing girls."

Jacob doesn't speak, but his eyes are dark when he looks at Edward. _You did this to her_, he thinks.

Edward sighs. "I know."

That startles a laugh out of Jacob, and he looks away, scrubbing a hand through his hair. "You have to stop doing that," he says.

"You don't have much of a mental filter, you know," Edward points out, glad to get off the topic of Bella.

"That's because all the other motherfucking werewolves are in my head all the time, too."

"Oh." Edward had forgotten about that. "Are they listening in right now?"

Jacob ducks his head, looks at the countertop, and eventually says, "It's less clear, now. I can still feel their emotions, and they can still feel mine."

Unwillingly fascinated, Edward tries reaching forward mentally, but Jacob is deliberately running a block, the guitar solo for _Freebird_, which Edward can't help but smile at. "Stop that," Jacob says. "It's an invasion of my privacy. Can't you turn it off?"

"No."

Jacob's dark gaze intensifies. "Really?" he asks. "Not even when you sleep?"

"I don't sleep," Edward replies, stirring another packet of sugar into his coffee.

"How do you keep from going crazy?" Jacobs asks, his face open in a rare moment, the light of curiosity in his eyes.

Edward looks out the grimy window of the diner to the highway, then pushes his untouched coffee away and stands up. "Come on, we have to get gas."

After a surprised moment, it clicks with Jacob, and he throws a few dollar bills on the table. His expression is distant and unreadable.

"Come on, bloodsucker," he says when he unfolds all six feet and seven inches of himself from the table.

That's all it ever comes down to. They're both different flavors of unnatural.

When they're watching the pump prices skyrocket, the nozzle of the gas pump slotted into the Volvo, Jacob turns to Edward. "Do you think we're actually going to find her?" he asks, voice surprisingly unguarded.

Edward looks up at him for a moment, and then touches Jacob on the arm of his leather jacket. "It'll be over soon," he promises. "We'll find her, and then it'll all be over."

"Are you actually going to off yourself?" Jacob asks bluntly.

"I can't live without her." Edward pulls the nozzle out of the Volvo. A few drops of gas splatter against the pavement, a few cents wasted on nothing.

Jacob snorts. "What are you doing now, then?"

"Right now, I'm paying for the gas," Edward replies. "And then I'm going to New York with a werewolf who hates me."

Jacob's frown deepens, but he sits in the car when Edward pays. _I don't hate you_,he thinks when Edward gets into the car.

He starts up the engine. _Stop thinking stupid things, werewolf_, he mentally replies, looking out at the road.

Ten hours to New York, New York.

Five hours later, in the middle of the day, Edward is jostled out of a blank headspace when Jacob says, "You're glittering."

Jacob's driving, so he should be paying attention to the road and not Edward's sparkly skin, but he's staring anyways, eyebrows drawing together. "Why are you glittering?" he asks.

Edward takes a moment to look at his own hands, like rough quartz in the glare of the sun. "Actually, there are a few theories about vampire skin, which relate to the appearance of…"

"Are you made out of rocks or something?" Jacob interrupts.

Sometimes, Edward worries that the werewolf is smarter than him. This is not one of those times. "No, Jacob, I am not made out of rocks."

"Huh. Well. I didn't know vampires could do that." Jacob is still staring, dark eyes intent and still slightly confused.

"Thought I would just catch on fire?"

"Something like that."

He turns his attention back to the road, and Edward curls up tighter so he is less exposed to the sun's rays, but he picks up a stray thought from Jacob.

_Pretty. He's fucking beautiful. Fucking vampires._

He shoves the errant thought away. He doesn't want to hear about how beautiful he is. Bella believed that, and look where it got her.

-

New York is New York. The buildings are tall, the people glare at each other on the streets, and the sheer vitality of the city overrides any underlying sense of despair.

After a good few hours in the suburbs spent trying to block out other people's minds, Edward finally lets go of the tight lock he has over his abilities and lets his conscious wander.

They're in the middle of a traffic jam. The main sense is one of frustration, but there are pinpricks of joy, of despair, of happiness and sadness and all the shades of gray in between. Edward's back relaxes the way it hasn't since he got into the Volvo with Jacob. Or, to be honest, since he first smelled Bella's blood all those chemistry classes ago. It's nice to just sit back and listen to people.

"You okay?" Jacob interrupts. He looks impassive, but there's a flicker of concern there. It's disturbing that Edward can read his moods now.

"I'm just…I'm fine."

Jacob studies him for another second, then goes back to surveying the traffic jam. "Okay. Good."

Edward stares out the window. The street is clogged with cars and irritated thoughts; beside him, Jacob is humming along with the radio and thinking about food and girls and motorcycle maintenance. _How much longer is this traffic jam going to last?_ Jacob thinks.

"A while, if I remember New York right," Edward says.

Jacob starts, but after a second he shakes his head and grins. "You _have_ to stop doing that."

"I told you, I can't control it."

_I wonder how much he can see,_ Jacob wonders.

Edward sits up a bit straighter, wincing at the way his back cracks. "Do you want me to answer that?"

He's still muffling a smile, but a spike of annoyance flashes in Jacob's mind, even as the corners of his eyes crinkle up the tiniest bit. "Feel free."

"It depends on how close I am to the person, how used to them I am, and how much I'm trying to see. Usually I try to block it off, but…" Edward shrugs. "Not right now."

"Why not?"

The werewolf's nosy, but Edward's bored enough to let it slide. "New York's a pretty crowded place, and it takes a lot of effort to keep the barriers up. Right now it's a lot easier to just let it all sink in. Of course, since I've spent a lot of time in your company, blocking you out takes a lot more concentration. I actually have a theory about that…"

Edward rambles on for a few minutes, in which they move forward a whole ten feet, while Jacob pretends to listen patiently.

"You have a lot of theories, huh," Jacob says.

Edward looks out the window again, watching as a murder of crows flap across the leaden sky. "I have a lot of time," he replies.

Jacob doesn't say anything in return, just slouches into the driver's seat and sighs, and when Edward looks over at him he offers a small smile that doesn't mean anything. His eyes are calm and dark.

Edward thinks of Bella's eyes, laughing and brown, and has to swallow around the lump in his throat. He can't stand missing her like this, feeling so empty all the goddamn time, so empty his enemy is slowly becoming his friend and his lover turning into a monster that he's powerless to stop, much less find.

A large hand grips him firmly on the shoulder. "Hey," Jacob says. "It's going to be all right."

The touch doesn't burn him, not as much as it did before. Edward endures it. He can smell the werewolf-smell, pungent and hazy like sweat and musk, and for a few moments he feels like he is drowning in it; he doesn't know when Jacob started being able to read him, too, and the thought disturbs him.

Jacob is breaking all his theories. Jacob and Bella have together destroyed a century's worth of detachment and control.

-

They stay in a cheap motel—cheap for New York—that has the same clashing patterns and boring paintings on beige walls as every cheap motel from the Pacific to the Atlantic and back again. Jacob dumps his bag on the bed and stretches out, sighing in relief as all the bones in his back crack back into place. Edward does not watch the way his muscles flex, solid and large, under the thin gray cotton of his shirt, and looks into the mirror instead.

He sees topaz eyes and reddish hair. He sees the fine print of missing Bella written all over the pale blandness of his skin. Time, in all the fading, feeble years he has lived, has robbed him of his humanity.

"Do you want to go out for a bit, see the sights?" Jacob asks a few minutes later.

"Going out sounds fine," he says, turning away from the mirror.

New York is New York. It is loud and bustling late at night, and the lights are neon bright, and there are almost as many cabs as cars on the streets. Jacob and Edward walk down the sidewalk, past the hordes of people. The lights reflect in Jacob's wide eyes. Edward looks down the narrow brick alleys and tries to figure out if he would get away with killing someone in one. The answer is yes every single time.

"Want to go to a bar?" Jacob asks, grinning. "I've got a fake ID, and I always figured if I was going to get off the reserve I'd come and drink in New York."

"Who am I to deny your dreams?" Edward says dryly.

Jacob shoves him playfully, and after a startled moment Edward shoves back, a bit too hard and not with the same nonchalance. The shove would ordinarily knock over whoever it was directed at, but Jacob just sighs and drops his hands. "What do you want to do, Edward?" he asks formally.

Edward was expecting some form of retaliation, and like everything the damn werewolf does, it catches him off-guard. "What?"

"Do _you_ want to do anything? It's not like there's a shortage of places to go, we could find a show to watch or a movie or even go to a bar if you want, although I'm not sure if either of us could actually get drunk." Jacob looked down at him expectantly.

You'd think that with the mind-reading, figuring out Jacob's motives would be easier, but all Edward's receiving is a steady roll of _answer the fucking question already._ Edward shrugs. "I don't care," he says.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't. Let's just go to the bar."

Jacob stops in the middle of the sidewalk and turns to face Edward, and the only things in his eyes are the flashing pink lights of a nearby strip club. "Were you like this before her?" he asks. "Or do you just not have any personality when she's gone?"

Edward meets his stare. "You loved her too," he points out.

"That doesn't fucking excuse it," Jacob says, his words spitting out into the night air like sparks. "I remember back when Victoria was near Forks, you had opinions—hell, you'd fight back when I pushed you, and now it's like you've got a lobotomy."

"Why does this even matter to you?" Edward snaps back.

The blank space in the conversation is punctuated by the blare of a car horn and, far off, the pounding bass of a nightclub. Eventually, Jacob sighs and looks away, running a hand through his thick black hair. "Okay. Okay, you're right, it shouldn't matter to me. Let's just…let's just go back to the motel."

"Okay," Edward replies, nonplussed, and Jacob walks away first.

-

For that night, they don't go onwards. They sit on their respective beds, steadfastly ignoring each other, as the world outside proceeds to move along raucously without them.

-

Down along one of the downtown streets, in the basement of a daylight acupuncture clinic, there's a depression-era vampire club that Edward had visited the last time he'd been in New York. It was still there, not-so-subtly pronouncing itself as the 'Fang NightSpot.'

Edward hates other vampires, and not just because they're not all that subtle.

The inside isn't so different from how it had been in the thirties—choked with cigarette smoke, faded velvet curtains, ebony tables and chairs that are pitted with cigarette burns and mangled by overly-strong vampire hands. It's fairly crowded that night, considering that usually vampires keep to themselves, but Edward manages to get to the bar after a few minutes spent lurking in the outside hallway, figuring out the exits and the likelyhood of the other patrons trying to kill him.

The bartender's a red-eyed girl with pink and blue hair. She smiles at Edward enticingly, eyes running down him like nails on his skin, leaving him cold. "What can I get you?" she asks.

He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a picture of Bella. It's one of the few she'd taken while she was still human, and her smile is bright as she stares up into the lens. "I'm looking for her," he says, sliding the photograph across the bar. "Her name is Bella, she's been fairly recently turned, and she's immune to vampire powers. Have you heard anything?"

The bartender's lips thin as she looks over the photograph, something wary and unpleasant flashing in her eyes. "I might have," she says, and leaves it at that.

Edward slides a fifty-dollar bill across the table in the path of the photo. "Remember anything?"

"It's all flooding back," she deadpans, trapping the bill under one spindly hand. "People have been talking about her. She's been in here once—not on my shift, mind you—and she was talking with Kelly. Nobody's seen the two of them lately."

"How long ago was that?" Edward asks.

She eyes him for a moment, her thin fingers toying with the fifty-dollar bill, then sighs and says, "Three nights ago."

He twitches at that. If his heart was still beating, it would have jumped for sure, and something close to hope and dread rises in his chest. "Thank you," he manages to say, and slides another bill across the bar with nerveless fingers. She hands him back the photo.

"You're a Cullen, aren't you?" she asks. "Your eyes are all the wrong color. What's someone like you doing chasing after someone like her?"

His state of shock quickly dissolves into a burst of anger. "What do you mean by that?"

She smirks. "No charge for this—the Volturi are after her because of the mass murdering, and I know your family's been in the shit with them before, so you just might want to watch your back. Some friendly advice."

Edward glares at her and stands up, knocking the barstool back a few inches. "Very kind of you," he says coldly, and then walks out of the bar and into the cool night air of the city. His hands are shaking.

-

"Where were you?" Jacob asks, rolling over in the bed to squint at Edward.

The room is warm despite the windows being open, probably because Jacob radiates heat, but Edward still feels frozen. "Bella's in New York," he says.

Jacob's frown deepens. "Didn't we know that already?"

"She's got a girl. They're either working together or she's killed her. And the Volturi are getting involved. They're probably here by now, too." Edward sits down on the other bed and kicks off his shoes, staring at the blank face of the warehouse in the window. "We have to find her. I can't do this anymore."

Jacob sits up. "Hey."

"I can't _do_ this anymore," Edward insists. He stares down at his knees and fights back the irritating but overwhelming urge to start crying. He can't even cry. He doesn't even have the hormones to make him want to cry anymore; they're all frozen in the biological wasteland of his body.

There's a shuffling sound from Jacob's side of the room, then a soft thump as his feet hit the floor. Then Jacob is sitting next to Edward, carefully touching his back. "It's going to be okay," he says.

"No, it's not," Edward replies truthfully.

Jacob rubs circles on Edward's back, hands warmer than any human hands have the right to be—and he's not, he's not human any more then Edward is, and despite their differences they're still more similar then they would ever admit. With a ragged sigh, Edward draws his legs up and rests his head on his knees. "We're going to be all right," Jacob says.

_We're so fucked_, he thinks.

Edward laughs.

-

The next sunset is choked in a mask of pollution, making the colours beautiful. Edward and Jacob set out on the streets again. Somewhere in the noise, Edward's cell phone rings.

"Alice," he says.

She sounds tired. "I'm flying out to New York. All the visions I'm getting are changing too much to pin down to one, and I really don't want to blow this lead."

"Which flight are you on?" Edward asks.

"Just come to the airport to pick me up." She sighs, and then hangs up.

Edward listens to the dead static for a moment, then says, "I love you," and ends the call.

When he turns to Jacob, he's watching, a puzzled half-smile on his face. "What's going on?" he asks.

"Alice is coming to New York to help out."

Jacob makes a face. "Just what we need. More bloodsuckers," he says, but it lacks heat. "Whatever. The sooner this is over…"

…_the sooner he's going to die. Oh shit, why did I say that? Awkward._ A tendril of a thought unfurled. _I don't want him to die._

"That makes one of us," Edward mutters.

"What?" Jacob looks perplexed now.

He didn't realize what he was thinking, didn't realize that he didn't want Edward to die, and that's either offensive or a huge fucking relief. Edward stops trying to actively read Jacob's thoughts. "Nothing," he says. "We need to get to the airport."

"You're the most withdrawn person ever," Jacob comments, shouldering his bag and looking up at the orange streetlights. "You need some sun. Fresh air."

Edward surprises himself by snorting at that, and Jacob grins at him. "I'm serious," he says. "Let's go to California after this is over."

There's no point in disagreeing with him. "Okay," Edward replies.

"Good." Jacob's smile flashes, white teeth in a dark face, and he taps Edward on the shoulder. "C'mon, let's get going."

-

And so they go onwards. This time, Alice comes back with them.

-

Alice is as beautiful as ever, although something about her eternally ageless skin is haggard and worn thin. Her topaz eyes are weary. "Hey, Edward," she says, wrapping him in a hug.

They're all in the airport, and the sight of the three of them, beautiful to their mortal prey, is drawing attention from passing people. The bright white lights of the terminal is making a valiant effort to stave off the night, but the attempt fails as soon as they move outside and the darkness once again takes control of the sky. Alice hasn't brought any luggage with her.

"I can buy new clothes here," she says when pressed, stretching out in the backseat of the car with a sigh. "Edward, we need to talk." The way her eyes flicker over to Jacob doesn't go unnoticed by any of them.

They get back to the motel, and Alice wrinkles her nose when she sits on the queen bed currently occupied by Edward, thinking about how terrible werewolves smelled. Over her head, Jacob raises an eyebrow at him.

Edward just shakes his head. With an unhappy smirk, Jacob dips his head, makes some excuse about getting food, and disappears.

She watches him go, then swivels her head back to eye Edward. "You two seem to be getting close," she says.

"Is there something wrong with that?" he asks.

"Yes," she says brusquely. "He's a werewolf, and you're a vampire. That you're working together is unnatural, let alone becoming close…"

Edward sits down beside her, the mattress springs creaking underneath him. "Alice," he interrupts. "How are you doing?"

She rolls her eyes. "Edward, listen to me…"

"Just…in a minute. How are you feeling?"

The stare at each other for a good few seconds, before finally she looks away. "Not too good," she admits. "Who is, though? The rest of us are worried about you."

"I'm fine," Edward says.

She gives him a cynical look, but puts her head on his shoulder. "No, you're not. You're going to pull some stupid stunt like you did last time, when you thought Bella was dead."

"I'm not," he says.

"Don't lie to someone who can see the future," Alice says, her voice weary and small. "There's just…Edward, you're not going to be able to do it. Why do you think I'm here? I'm not letting you do this alone."

The two of them sit in silence. Eventually, Edward reaches over and pulls her against his chest, breathing in the flowery scent of her hair and letting himself believe that things will be better tomorrow.

The next evening, they all go out in a state of wary truce, and begin the search for Bella. Alice buys the daily paper and searches for any mention of a murder while they're on the subway, while Edward glares at any men who give her a second look and Jacob sits in his own seat, thinking longingly of sleeping during the night rather the day.

After they go in a steady loop of the inner city five times, Alice gets a dazed look on her face and sways forwards over her knees. Surprisingly, Jacob is the one who steadies her, making sure she doesn't fall off her seat with oddly gentle hands. "You okay?" he asks.

"She's having a vision," Edward answers, biting down on a hit of anxiety when she shudders and lists to the side, eyes staring blankly at the subway wall rushing by.

"What the hell kind of vision is that?" Jacob demands.

Edward shrugs, but when Alice's limp arm falls next to his, he reaches out to touch it. Her premonitions envelop him.

…Skin and blood; a sprawl of graffiti on the wall behind, red lips breathing in nothing and a body disconnected, fingers curled in pieces across the alley. She stands above the body, grinning, and her teeth are sharp and white in the orange streetlights. Her eyes are blood-red…

…_Skin, this time living—or undead—and layered over muscle and bone. Arms and legs twined together, dark and light, and the soft gasps and wet noises that characterize an amorous encounter. The couple is in a car, the windows fogged over. The darker one lifts his head, sweat gleaming on his high cheekbones, _and Edward recognizes him, Jacob—_and the other stares up at him, topaz eyes dilated…_

The other person is him.

-

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asks later, in the motel room, when the real Jacob is sprawled-out asleep on the other bed and snoring. Flickers of the orange streetlights are darting across the beige walls.

"Tell you what?" she asks absently. Her face is blue in the reflected glow of her laptop. She's looking at news sights, probably, maybe her stocks in the oil industry, now that the market's crashing.

Edward watches her, as always. "About the…the future. Jacob and I."

Her hands go still over the keyboard. "I…" she begins, faltering, and looks up to meet his eyes.

"Don't you think I deserve to know?" Edward says.

She looks at him for a moment, then simply says, "No," and turns back to her computer.

"You can't just—"

She cuts him off. "Edward, talking to you lately is like talking to a brick wall. You don't care about anything anymore, much less me or the future. All you want is the past. _Bella._" The name curls on her lips. "How am I supposed to tell you about your future when you don't think you have one?"

"But…" He feels sick. He never realizes, not until afterwards, when the music has stopped and he's missed the steps that leave him wobbling. He has a family, they love him, and he doesn't deserve their worry. "Alice, I…"

"It's not your fault," she interrupts again. "What happened to Bella was my fault. You weren't the one who bit her, Edward."

"I was the one who made her want it," he mutters.

She sighs, and closes the laptop, her movements echoing like whispers in the quiet room. "You were. It's still not your fault."

They could debate this back and forth for years, for all of the eternity they are cursed to live through, but despite that, they'd never agree on this, so Edward lets it drop. "Why didn't you tell me about…the Jacob thing?" he asks instead.

"I didn't want you to know," she says, voice going brittle.

"Why not?"

"Because there isn't a single future it ends well in," she says. "Damn it, Edward, I've considered every possibility. There's _nothing_."

The motel room is stiflingly quiet, but outside there are sirens and loud voices, the low-level buzz of traffic and music. New York is a vampire; she never sleeps.

Edward doesn't look at Jacob or Alice. "What happens if we don't…" He trails off.

"I can't tell you that," Alice says flatly.

"Why—"

"Edward, no."

"But—"

She lunges forward and has him by the throat in an instant. He doesn't move, just stares up at her in shock as she shakes him, topaz eyes dilated in the darkness. "You _die_," she hisses. "Every single fucking future, you _die._ Do you _understand _how feels to watch someone you love kill themselves and you can't fucking stop it? You tried to fucking commit suicide when you saw it, and I just…I can't…I'm not almost losing you again, Edward."

And then she's gone, slamming out of the motel and into the tepid night air. Edward sits on the bed, stunned into silence. New York tips him a knowing wink from under her brim of skyscrapers.

-

* * *

Please read and review, and give concrit if you've spotten any errors. Thank you!


	2. fear is the heart of love

**ii. chapter two**

-

_"Are you sure you want to do this?" Edward asked, holding Bella's hand perhaps a bit longer then necessary._

_She grinned at him. "I'm sure," she promised. Her grin was brighter then the sunlight; they were all outside, near the edge of the forest, and the sun was glittering off the Cullen's skins. "I'm going to be fine, don't worry."_

_Her blood smelled like heaven. "Are you sure?" he asked again._

_"I'm going to be fine," she said, smiling, and stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on the lips. "I'm with you."_

-

The pavement of the alley is cracked and host to numerous black puddles. The few working streetlights cast a sinister orange glow over the brick walls and junk cars, the ragged people and skitter-eyed drug addicts across the street steadfastly looking the other way. Bella's eyes are red.

Edward can smell blood, distant and nagging in the back of his head, and he can hear the girl who Bella had attacked whimpering into the cement—_oh my god I'm going to die I'm going to die shit I never said I loved her I'mgoingtodie_—but all he can see is Bella's red, red eyes.

"Edward," she says softly. "You came."

"Bella," he whispers. His voice breaks on her name.

"You came," she says again, mouth curving up into a perfect (unnatural) smile, gruesomely red in her white face. She takes a step forward.

He takes a step backwards. "No, Bells, you can't do this. I'm going to take you home, all right? It'll be okay, I promise, please, Bella, just come with me and it'll be fine."

"I am fine," she replies. Her teeth are sharp and bloodstained.

"Bella…"

"I love you," she says simply, eyes lighting, and she moves to him with a swiftness and grace she wouldn't have been capable of as a human, touching him on the cheek with cold fingers. "Why don't you come with me? We can hunt together, we can make love, we'll be eternal together…look," she says scornfully, pointing back at the bleeding girl, who had made some feeble efforts to crawl away before her punctured lungs finally gave out and she died on in a grimy alleyway; "She called herself beautiful. We're beautiful, Edward. And we always will be."

"Yes, we will," he says desperately, capturing her hand in his own. "But you have to come with me."

Her hand is too cold and too strong. For a second, he does not recognize the woman he loves.

"No. I'll show you." Her smile is just as wrong as her hands. "I know you must think I've gone crazy, but really, I've got it all worked out. Edward, I'm going to be the most beautiful girl in the world for you."

"Bella…" he says helplessly, and she kisses him softly, lips icy and delicate.

"Come with me." Her eyes are still the wrong colour, but they're the right shape, and he takes her hand, unbeating heart lodged in his throat, eyes closed.

There are light, quick footsteps, and Alice emerges from the gloom of the unlit alleyway. "Let him go," she says calmly.

Bella smiles frostily at her, but drops his hand. "Alice. How's it going? Still seeing the future?"

"Obviously," Alice replies, crossing her thin arms. "This has got to stop. Killing pretty girls isn't going to make Edward love you again."

"He never stopped loving me," she says confidently, looking up at him to confirm it.

In every line of Alice's body there is malice. "He loved you for your blood. And now you have none left. Now either you stop, or we'll kill you."

"Edward wouldn't hurt me," Bella replies, still smiling the wrong smile, with her body tensed for a fight and lips red with blood. "And if you try to, I'll kill you."

The smell of a werewolf hits Edward's nose. He sags in relief, sending out mental threads to Jacob, who is approaching swiftly on massive paws. Jacob is calm, focused. He's not going to go to pieces the way Edward did.

"You still love me," Bella whispers, more uncertain now. "Don't you?"

He doesn't answer.

She smacks a quick kiss against his cheekbone and says so quiet he doesn't understand at first, "I'll make myself better for you, don't worry," and then she's gone.

He hears Alice yelling, Jacob racing by in a clatter of claws and fur, and then the two of them are running off into the darkness; but Edward, he sags against the graffiti-stained brick wall on the side of the alley and puts his head in his hands, praying to a God he doesn't believe in that someday, something will change.

Bella is gone.

Again.

-

Jacob comes back before Alice does, exhaustion and failure sketched in every line of his now-human skin. He crouches next to Edward. The grimy puddles gather around the soles of his bare feet. "She got away," he tells him.

"I know," Edward replies, not looking up.

"Come on, we'll meet up with Alice at the motel."

He doesn't move.

"Come on, you stupid vampire," Jacob says, dragging him upright by the elbow. His skin is pungent with the stench of werewolves and sweat and blood, but Edward leans into him anyways.

"I want to die," he mumbles.

"I know. C'mon."

-

Alice flies back to Seattle. The circles under her eyes are more prominent then before, and somehow, her skin is becoming creased and tense with worry. "I need to talk to everybody else," she says, folding him in a hug. "You know where to reach me, all right? I love you."

Edward doesn't hug her back. He doesn't say anything.

She bites her lip, struggling with herself, before turning to Jacob and saying flatly, "Look, I'm only asking you this because you're the only option, but…promise me you'll keep him from doing anything stupid, all right?"

Jacob is standing off to the side. He nods, though, and for a brief moment their eyes meet.

Stepping back from Edward, Alice squeezes his hands one last time, then turns away and walks to the airport terminal, not looking back.

They spend several hours getting out of New York, and stop in a small diner in Jersey City that has red vinyl seats with cigarettes burns and mildew crawling up the walls, hidden under vintage coca-cola ads and pink neon flamingos.

Jacob orders a huge meal for himself, and a coffee for Edward. He shoves it towards him. "Drink it," he says.

It's easier to obey him then to take an independent action. Edward drinks the coffee.

They're roaring down a mostly abandoned highway, and all they're getting is a top forties pop station, but Jacob gives him a hopeful look anyways and turns the volume up.

Edward's driving. He looks down the empty highway and considers drifting into the next lane, waiting until the next semitruck crests the next hill and then swerving into it. The sad thing is that it wouldn't be enough to kill them. They would crawl out of the mangled wreck of the car with their wounds already healing.

The radio is playing a wistful song. _I got soul, but I'm not a soldier_, a chorus of people sing, repeating themselves in a rising crescendo.

"I got soul, but I'm not a soldier," Edward joins in, the last line before the chorus dissolves into divergent wailing. The song goes on.

Edward turns the radio down a bit, not meeting Jacob's gaze in the rearview mirror, and asks him, "Why are you still here?"

Jacob's eyes widen, like he wasn't expecting Edward to talk at all, but after a few seconds he shrugs and looks back out the window. "I've got nowhere better to be."

As answer, it lacks something. Edward is too tired to figure out why.

_Because of you_, Jacob thinks, thoughts slipping through the murky depths of his mind like minnows. _Because of you, you stupid vampiric asshole_.

"You shouldn't," Edward mumbles.

Jacob ignores him, and after a few minutes, turns the radio up again.

-

They go on.

-

They wind down the East Coast slowly, taking time to see all the stupid tourist attractions littering the way, all the places off the highway tinged with decay and loneliness. It's somewhere in Virginia that they stop for the night, in front of a seedy motel with the vacancy lights flickering in pink neon.

"Classy joint," Jacob remarks, grinning.

Edward just huddles in closer around himself.

Jacob spares him an exasperated look, then pulls up the parking brake and gets out of the car, feet crunching on the gravel. In between the long hours of truck stops and bad coffee, somewhere between the last sunny day and the onset of autumn clouds, Jacob had stopped putting up with Edward.

Edward didn't particularly care.

The dusk is a mellow sort of warm when he gets out of the Volvo. Jacob's already headed off towards the lobby, duffel bag in hand, and he glances back at Edward just long enough to let him know he should pick up the pace. Back on the highway, he can hear the roar of trucks blazing onwards through the approaching night.

Inside the lobby is the typical kitchsy mess of faux-antiques and earnest tour brochures for local entertainment, but there is nobody behind the front desk to book a room with. In the corner, there is an old, cheap-looking piano, with a sign saying 'do not touch!!' propped against the keys. Edward's fingers itch.

"It says don't touch, asshole," Jacob says, leaning against the front desk.

Edward doesn't turn around, just lets his fingers hover over the keys, then presses down on one. An off-key C note rings through the lobby.

Something strange flickers in Jacob's eyes. "Don't fuck with the piano, man," he says, but Edward ignores him and sits on the bench, resting his hands on the keys lightly, not pressing down just yet.

"Seriously, Edward, if you piss the management off—" Jacob begins to say.

The piano is slightly out of tune, enough to make Edward wince, but he begins playing Moonlight Sonata. At first he goes slow. It's been long enough that his fingers are slightly uncertain on the keys, but he knows this song, he's played it so many times it's grooved in his memory, and once he settles into it, he starts playing it harder, fingers blurring over the length of the piano. If Jacob tries to get him away from the piano, he can't hear it, he can't feel it.

He's missed this. He's missed the music, how it felt to not only just listen to it, but to give it life and make it fill the air. He's missed the calm he feels when he plays, detached from everything but the notes, the bridges, hammering out the sharps and flats with steady fingers.

When he finishes the sonata, he crashes right into playing Rue Des Cascades, and then into Esme's Song, the one he wrote for her all those years ago in Chicago before he left the family in search of his own identity, and then finally into the piece he'd played for Bella, the lullaby in D Minor.

His fingers slowed on the keys, then finally petered out with a few high notes that hung in the air, slowly echoing away. He slumped over the piano.

"Whoa," said the room attendant, who had appeared somewhere in the middle of the playing. "Dude. I didn't know that piano actually worked."

And then Jacob was there, pulling him up off the bench, and Edward realized his own face was wet, that he'd been crying. "C'mon," Jacob says softly, guiding him upright and out the door. "I got us the room, let's go."

Edward leans on him, feeling the heat radiating through his skin and the werewolf musk that he's almost gotten used to. "I'm so tired," he mumbles into Jacob's shoulder.

Jacob's arm tightens around him for a second, but all he says is, "It's going to be okay."

"You don't know that," Edward says.

"No, not really."

Jacob opens up the motel room door, revealing clashing floral patterns and the typical beige walls, and drags Edward in. The air smells like strangers, old bedsheets and cleaning chemicals.

"I want it to be," Edward says sluggishly. "I want it to be different, this time, but it won't be."

Jacob deposits him on one of the queen beds, far more gentle then he would've been half-an hour ago, and asks, "Why not?"

"Because it won't be. She had all of me. She never believed that I loved her that much, not really." Edward looks up at Jacob, trying to read his expression rather than his thoughts. He says again, "I'm so tired."

Jacob sighs. "You're fucked up, man."

"I know," he says miserably.

Jacob looks down at him for a bit, inscrutable, then says, "Shove over," and collapses onto the bed next to Edward. His face is tight and unhappy. Their feet touch at the bottom of the bedspread, but neither of them move away. "This doesn't have to be a thing, you know," he says.

Edward doesn't reply for a while. After he'd seen the future through Alice, he'd thought that the slide into this thing, whatever it was, with Jacob, was going to be a lot more gradual, but here it was now, staring him in the face. He'd half-believed it would never happen.

"Okay," he replies eventually, and stays awake all night while Jacob slowly curls around him, all warm breath and hot skin and loud, thumping heart, unmistakably alive.

-

The next motel they stop at, the clerk taps the pen against the desk and asks, "Single or double?"

Jacob doesn't look him in the eye. "Single," he says.

Both the clerk and Edward raises an eyebrow at him, and Jacob looks down, the beginning of a flush rising on his face. "It's cheaper, okay?"

It isn't, really, because motels charge per person, but Edward lets it slide, just like he lets Jacob crash onto the bed next to him at night, lets him snuggled closer, sticking his warm face into Edward's neck where the bite marks from a century ago still burn cold. Edward lets him do all this, because he doesn't know how to ask for it, and he doesn't know how to say no to it.

They tangle together. They go on.

-

It's two weeks later, two weeks of carefully maneuvering around each other and unspoken question that are never answered, before Alice phones again. "Phoenix," she says.

They're in the Volvo, like usual, which is littered with Styrofoam coffee mugs and Jacob's takeout boxes and Edward's CDs that he buys in any town they stop in. They're listening to one of the new Coldplay songs.

Edward shoots Jacob a glance, then looks back at the road. "What about Phoenix?" he asks.

"Bella's going there next," she says, voice softening. "I think she wants to talk to her mother. How are you doing, Edward?"

He pulls over to the side of the road, looks over his shoulder, then wheels the car in a circle and starts heading back where they came from. Crazy fucker, Jacob thinks, but even inside his head he sounds amused.

"I'm doing fine," Edward says to Alice. "How are you?"

"Better," she says. "Jasper's been here for me. I'm better."

"Good," Edward says, and means it.

"Esme and Carlisle want you to come home and let the Volturi deal with Bella."

Up ahead, there is a curve approaching. Edward doesn't slow down. "I'm not going back to Forks," he tells her.

"We'll go somewhere else. Montreal, maybe, they have good music there, you'd like it, Edward."

"I have to find Bella first," Edward says. "Thanks, Alice."

"I love you," she says, and hangs up.

Jacob is thinking about the empty blue sky, wondering what the world looks like from above, wondering if there are any other aboriginal reserves nearby that give birth to werewolves. "Where are we going now?" he asks.

"West," Edward says, and floors the gas.

-

Going west means driving straight through a veil of rain that blankets the middle of the country, signaling the onset of fall. The windshield wipers pump constantly for a few days, then break and leave the glass mottled with rain. Jacob fixes them after Edward, going far too fast, nearly hits another car.

A year ago, Edward would have been going to the university in Alaska. A year ago, he would've just married Bella.

Somewhere in Texas, down the long, flat interstate highway, Edward swallows around the lump in his throat and tries to keep his hands from shaking on the steering wheel. The rain swoops down on the Volvo.

_I wonder where Bella is_, Jacob is thinking. Then, musingly, his thoughts trail on. _I miss her. How she used to be. I think I still love her, but now…fuck. It's really pouring down. We've been chasing this fucking storm all across the south._

"We're always chasing storms," Edward says, so quiet it's barely audible over the wumpscut of the windshield wipers.

Jacob looks over at Edward anyways. His face is half-swallowed in the shadows, all the dashboard lights turned off, clock swallowed up by the night, so late it's morning again. "Don't you go poetic on me," he warns, quiet too, like there is someone else listening in on the conversation. "I barely survived it last time."

Edward replies with, "Most people don't like it when I read their thoughts."

Either Jacob is half-asleep, or he is more used to Edward's way of conversing then Edward knows, because he just says, "I've had plenty of time to get used to it."

"It's only been a few months."

"No, I'm a werewolf, remember? The whole pack can see my thoughts."

Edward's forgotten this, and Jacob can tell this, because he smirks and props his head up with long fingers.

"I...I didn't…" Edward begins.

Jacob cuts him off. "Thought you were special, didn't you," he says lightly, mockingly, with a soft smile. "It's all right. You'll get over it."

Edward is used to people indulging him, but not the way Jacob is doing it, intimate in the darkness with smiles on their faces. Instead of voicing this, he says, "I asked you before, but you didn't tell me why the pack couldn't see your thoughts right now."

The smile fades from Jacob's face, and he sits back against the passenger seat. "They're not looking right now," he says shortly, but it's muted by the night, any venom or regret drained out and left behind on the highway. Jacob sighs. "They're…they never did approve of you. When I came on this hunt for Bella, well…they cut me off, mentally. They never wanted me to fall in love with Bella while she was obsessed by you and the vampires."

"But you did anyways," Edward says.

"But I did anyways," he agrees peacefully, then says, "I loved her."

"Loved?"

Jacob looks out at the road, lips curving up, eyes tired. "I don't think she can be saved, Edward. I just don't…I don't want her to keep existing like this. It's not her anymore."

He catches his breath like it's a hitched sob, on the verge of control, and Edward is afraid to break the silence that settles between them, afraid of what will happen if he pushes deeper through the hidden parts of their souls, scrapes his fingernails through their grimy pasts and loses himself in the memories of what they used to be.

"If I don't have her…" Edward says, unable to control how his voice wobbles, hating the weakness, "If she can't be saved…I can't, either. I don't have anything to hold onto. I don't have anything left."

Jacob swallows, throat working, and then looks away, fingers splayed across his sharp face. "You have me," he says hoarsely, staring out the rain-flecked window.

Edward bites his lip so hard it bleeds, eyes prickling. "I know," he says eventually.

He's not looking at Jacob, he's watching the road, but he knows that there are tears in Jacob's eyes, running down his face. Edward keeps driving. It's all that he can do.

-

And so, through the night and the rain, they go on.

* * *

Thank you all so much for your kind reviews and comments, they mean so much to me! )


	3. noone gets out alive

**chapter iii**

-

_The wedding reception was in Forks; the backyard of the Cullen's house, to be specific. Both Bella's mother and father were there, exchanging cordial comments and studiously not acknowledging the presence of Renee's new husband, who was hanging off her arm awkwardly._

_It was an overcast day, but luckily it did not rain, so they held the reception outside. Bella looked beautiful, glowing in her dress, but when the cameras came out her smile diminished a bit._

_"Do I look okay?" she asked anxiously._

_Edward had never been so happy. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he said, struggling to put it into words. "I can't believe I'm lucky enough to be married to you."_

_With that, her smile returned full-force, and it almost hurt, how much Edward loved her at that moment. "I love you, too," she said, and when the cameras clicked, she wasn't even looking at them._

"Want to see the Grand Canyon?" Jacob asks.

Edward's seen bits and pieces on the canyon in his travels across the continent, and after the third or fourth visit, it had stopped being quite so exciting.

"Okay," he says anyways, and Jacob's face lights up, unabashedly happy. Edward's seen that expression before, on someone else's face, but it takes him a moment to place it.

-

Edward covers just about every inch of skin he can with clothing and his skin with a cheap concealer bought at a massive superstore that doesn't quite manage to completely disguise the sparkle his hands and face when they step out into the sun.

"People will notice," he warns Jacob.

"Who cares? Let's go see the canyon," Jacob says, and hops out of the car.

Edward glares at him and mutters, "This is a bad idea."

He follows him anyways.

They walk over to the roped-off edge of the canyon together. Their shoulders bump, and Jacob grins when Edward looks up at him. "Aren't you glad that you're just sparkly and not exploding into a pile of ashes?" Jacob says cheerfully.

Edward glares, but it's less effective when he feels a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Yeah, I'll do that just as soon as I turn into a bat and sleep in a coffin."

"Hey, I watched Dracula. I know all your secrets, vampire."

"You don't know anything," Edward says, and Jacob is surprised into a bark of laughter. He knocks Edward's shoulder again, and Edward elbows him in the ribs. Jacob laughs again.

The canyon couldn't have been more different from the constant drizzle of Forks. The storm has left behind a late-blooming mass of greenery, and the air smells like baked earth and sage, the sun hanging golden and hot in the sky. Edward tips back his face to catch the sun.

It's September, the off-season for tourism, so the area is relatively quiet. Edward squints out across the canyon from under his hat. It's as beautiful as he remembers it, and it's the beauty of something filled with life. It makes Edward edgy.

"Can we go now?" he asks.

"No," Jacob says, leaning against the fence and peering over the edge of the canyon. "Hey, do you see any rangers around?"

"There's a few tourists standing over there," Edward says without looking. "What are you going to do?"

"A little climbing," Jacob replies, grinning.

Edward frowns. "We need to get to Phoenix."

"It'll only take a minute. C'mon. It'll be fun."

It's a really nice day. Edward can't remember the last time he went running for his own enjoyment rather than that of his enemies.

"After you," he says, and waits until Jacob drops off the cliff before jumping over the fence in his path.

-

"Tell me that wasn't fun," Jacob says when they get back to the car six hours later, smelling more strongly of werewolf then he has in weeks from his recent transformation. He leans against the hood of the car. "Go ahead. Tell me how we're running late. I'll wait."

Ducking his head, Edward allows a small smile to surface on his face. "We _are _late," he points out. "But…I had a good time."

Jacob grins at Edward and shakes his head, looking back out across the canyon.

Even in the dark, Edward can still see it clearly, and in repose the landscape is just a beautiful as it was under the sun. The air is still warm from the traces of daylight.

"It was good to get out of the car," Edward says.

He's standing in front of Jacob, and with the werewolf leaning on the hood of the car, they're almost exactly the same height. Edward wonders how well they would be matched in a fight, vampire against werewolf, alive or dead; if they would end up killing each other or if they would refuse to fight.

Something in Jacob's eyes changes. "Hey," he says. "C'mere."

"Why?" Edward asks, staying where he is.

"Come here," Jacob insists, reaching out and grabbing the bottom of his shirt, pulling him forwards.

Edward shuffles forward with uncharacteristic gawkiness. Their knees are almost touching. "What?" he repeats, defensively, because Jacob is still looking at him with that odd expression, one that is slowly twisting him up in a feeling that could be perpendicular to uneasiness.

Jacob reaches up and touches him lightly on the jaw. His fingers are hard and rough with calluses.

Edward stands perfectly still. "What are you doing?" he asks.

For a second, he thinks Jacob is going to kiss him, because he cups his hand around Edward's cheek and tilts his jaw up. Then the expression in Jacob's eyes change, and his thoughts dissolve into haywire static, back to a shifting mess of confusion and wariness that Edward can't read, even if he tried. He drops his hand.

"Nothing. Come on, we're running late."

Edward steps back, and Jacob pushes himself off the hood of the car and walks around to the passenger door, avoiding Edward's gaze.

The Volvo is no longer the shiny silver it used to be, and has faded to a dull grey underneath the coat of dust and the nicks from rocks on the road, the dent where Jacob punched it several weeks ago. Something's up with the suspension, too, and the car rocks when Jacob drops himself in and closes the door hard.

It doesn't matter. Edward has other cars.

He gets into the car, too, and turns the keys in the ignition. The engine rumbles to life, and he pulls out of the parking lot and onto the highway, where a few other cars are only red taillights speeding away into the twilight. The car chews up the road.

_Stupid vampire,_ Jacob thinks, arms folded. _Stupid pack of vampires._

_Why did you do that_? Edward thinks back, shifting the car into fifth and swooping around a slow-moving sedan. Jacob doesn't answer, mentally or verbally, just sits there, resolutely looking straight ahead.

"We'll be in Phoenix in a few hours," Edward says.

Jacob nods once, the muscle in his jaw flexing.

Over the past few weeks, somehow, despite their history of mutual hatred, they've somehow managed to slip into something that is only a few shades off friendship. Edward doesn't know how it happened, but he's surprisingly reluctant to let it go. Somehow, this werewolf had become someone important to him.

"Are you all right?" Edward asks.

Jacob grunts, then reaches out to turn on the car radio. Johnny Cash's wavering old voice fills the car.

_And you can have it all, my empire of dirt. I will let you down. I will get you hurt…_

The Volvo speeds on through the night.

-

They go on.

-

The sun isn't up yet, but the sky is growing lighter over the western horizon. Jacob is asleep in the passenger seat. If Edward turns his head, he could see Jacob's face, slack and peaceful with sleep, fingers curled into his worn gray shirt, eyes flickering underneath the lids.

Edward doesn't look at him. Edward stares straight ahead at the road.

After all that he and Bella have been through, the pain and the love and the joy and the tears and the blood; after all that, he hadn't thought there was room left within him for another person; he hadn't thought it would be Jacob Black, of all people.

But then again, Edward and Jacob had shared Bella's love for several years now. It wasn't so strange that they'd share themselves, too.

-

They reach Phoenix in the dusty, scorched afternoon, the sun high in the blue, blue sky.

-

Bella's mother lives in the bowl of valley, deep within the acres of suburbia around the downtown, in a small pink stucco house with a small pink garden out front.

Renee doesn't smile as brightly as she once did, and when she pours them both a glass of iced tea her movements are slow and halting. She studies Edward with sad, wrinkled eyes.

"You look like you haven't aged a day since you married her," she says.

Jacob looks out the window, sunbeams playing across the tanned skin of his throat and collar, and takes a sip of his iced tea. Edward copies the gesture, though he know it'll just lead to him crouching on the side of the road later, trying to retch up the sickly sweet drink from his stomach.

Renee sighs. Her face was weathered with laugh lines when Edward had last seen her at the wedding, but now furrows were etched across her forehead, around her nostrils and lips and eyes, spreading down in webs of failing skin, yet another person he was responsible to for causing pain.

"I haven't seen her," she says. "I wish I had, but…you don't know where she is?"

Jacob and Edward exchange a glance. "We had a fight," Edward says slowly. "I thought she'd come down here, but I suppose that's not the case if she hasn't come to visit you."

Renee encircles her own glass of tea with shaky fingers. Even her hands show signs of aging, with veins rising from the soft skin and knuckles thickening with an onset of arthritis. "No," she says again. "I haven't seen her. She might have gone to Jacksonville, I live there for most of the year now. My husband, Phil, he plays for the Suns there, you might have seen him play on the television, baseball, you know…"

She looks so much like Bella, Jacob thinks. This is how Bella would've looked, if I was strong enough to put an end to her obsession with immortality.

Renee looks at Jacob. "You're Quileute, aren't you? You looks like Billy."

Jacob nods.

"You weren't at the wedding," she says. "I would've remembered. You weren't there. I thought Bella told me you two were close friends."

"We were," Jacob says, looking down at the table, his big hands folded across the cheap fake wood. "I…we haven't seen each other in a while. I want to talk to her again."

With a sigh, Renee pushes her hair away from her face, looking at Edward again. "Bella's a good girl. She wouldn't hurt anybody."

Both Edward and Jacob look away from her now, studying the beige walls, the floral pillows on the couch, sitting in silence.

Renee says, "You and Bella were such a beautiful couple. It's too bad it was raining that day during the ceremony, or else it would have been the perfect wedding. You loved her so much…" Her voice trails off wistfully.

Edward clears his throat. "I still do."

He wishes he was lying.

-

After they leave Renee's house, they go into the underground parking lot where they left the Volvo and lean against the steel flanks of the car. Jacob is quiet, pulling loose threads off his shirt under the bright fluorescent lights.

He's thinking rapidly, not too coherently, and words emerge from the radio static of his mind in tattered pieces, more broad concepts then fully rendered syllables and vowels, a torrent of _love hate death lies family strangers sunlight night._

Feeling oddly uneasy, Edward retreats back into his own mind.

"How can you be in love with someone you hate?" Jacob asks. He sounds like he's trying to be quiet, but the concrete walls and pillars pick up his voice, amplifies it back at them, and the werewolf winces. "I mean," he says, even quieter, "You want to kill her, right? How can you still love her?"

Edward makes no effort to disguise his voice, to mask the pain in it, dull it down so it doesn't echo across the empty grey space. "I don't fucking know anything about love," he says.

Jacob's eyes widen in surprise. "Edward…" he begins.

For the first time in a long time, Edward feels cold; but when he wraps his arms around his chest, he feels nothing but the hollow space where his heart used to beat. "I don't understand love," he repeats in a whisper. If he had anything else in his body other then frozen, dead organs he would have started crying. He's not even granted that escape.

Jacob reaches out and pulls Edward over, wrapping his arms around his back, a hand to his shoulder, a hand to his hip, pressing them together. His chin nudges against the top of Edward's head when he speaks.

"It'll be okay," he says. "It'll be okay."

Standing lifelessly in Jacob's grip, Edward can feel the heat from his body, the overly-quick pulse of his blood, the way he smells putrid, like werewolf and youth.

"It won't," Edward says, but he reaches up anyways, reaches up to hold onto Jacob's broad shoulders and rest his forehead against Jacob's collarbone, breathing in the smell of his skin again, and again, and again.

-

The two of them stay in another nondescript motel, and sitting on the bedspread, Edward lets his mind go by increments, searching for the blank spot that is Bella in the millions of thoughts.

In a way it's almost comforting. For now, he's not alone.

Somewhere out there, someone is getting their happy ending.

Edward digs his toes into the carpet and searches for the blank spot.

-

When he finally resurfaces, Jacob is sitting on the bed beside him, talking on Edward's cell phone.

"He's been just sitting here for a while, he was like this when I got in. I don't know. I think he's looking for Bella with his mind powers or something," Jacob says, shifting the phone to his other hand and reaching down to pull at the laces of his dusty shoes. "No, I didn't get her scent anywhere. We're trying." Pause. "Are you sure your premonition was right?" Edward can hear Alice's voice on the other end of the phone, berating Jacob about the intricacies of the future, and has to fight down an unexpected smile. "All right, I'm sorry I asked. Any other possible futures she's running around in?"

Edward nudges him in the side, and Jacob turns to look at him, grins briefly, and says into the phone, "Edward's back from the metaphysical realm or wherever the fuck he was, want to yell at him for a while?" Pause. "Okay. Take care."

Alice is talking when Edward puts the cell to his ear. "…There was also something in Italy, I think, but she decided not to do that because I'm not getting any more flashes there, and I'm half-sure she's in Arizona, so you two should keep watching her mother…"

"Alice," Edward says.

She pauses. "Hello," she replies, somewhat sheepishly, and in the background, Edward can hear Jasper talking to Esme. His throat tightens for an instant. "Jacob tells me you're not having any luck finding Bella in Phoenix."

"It's no use looking for her mentally," Edward says wearily. "I've looked through everybody's minds in the city, and either I just can't find her or she's not here."

"I might have been wrong," Alice admits. "I'm getting flashes of her from all over the world, now, but the clearest visions are from Arizona. I'll keep looking, though. How are you doing?"

"I'm fine." Edward watches Jacob watch the television, propped up on his elbows, too-sharp eyes flickering from particle to particle on the cheap set. "Do you remember that vision you had in New York, Alice?"

For a few seconds, there's only silence on the other end.

"I had a lot of visions in New York," she replies carefully.

_Arms and legs twined together, dark and light..._

Edward ignores her hesitation, because she knows which vision he's talking about, she has to, and continues, "I was just wondering what would happen when the vision comes true."

Alice inhales sharply. Edward waits, staring at the unmoving clock, while the host on the new show talks about the war on the television. He can hear Jacob's breathing.

"Has it?" she asks, so softly he barely hears her.

"No."

The conversation breaks for a long minute. Eventually, Alice sighs, and says slowly, "I can't predict the future _that _well, Edward. Anything could happen."

"But…I don't want…I don't want to hurt any more people," he replies, digging his fingers into the bedspread and feeling the cheap fabric give away beneath his fingernails. "I don't want to hurt him."

Jacob glances over at him, eyebrows raised in question.

"That's part of life," Alice says gently. "I'm not the person you should be asking about this, Edward."

He forces out the words, sharp and raw in his throat. "Who do I talk about this to, then? You can predict the future, you should tell me if I'm going to hurt him."

"I can't give you that," Alice says. She's quiet, subdued, and somewhere in the background Jasper is asking her what's wrong. "I've got to go, but remember that I love you. Call me again if you need anything."

Edward stays on the empty phone until the dial tone begins beeping in his ear.

"What was that about?" Jacob asks, sitting up on the other bed and cocking his head to the side.

Edward drops the phone on the bedside table, staring down at his feet, wondering if he should see the ground giving away below them instead of only feeling numb. "It's nothing," he mumbles.

Jacob studies him for a moment. "Okay," he says, doubtfully, but turns back to the television set anyways.

Edward looks towards it too, but all he can see are the tiny, wavy dots of green and red that make up the screen, not the full picture.

-

If he was going to verbalize the way he felt, sick and twisted on the inside, he'd explain to the person—though he doesn't know who, and all his mind provides is his own reflection—he'd explain to them that he'd always expected it to be poetic. But it's not. It's raw and painful, too blunt for nuances, and most of all, it just hurts.

In his mind, the shadow of himself nods, and Edward tries to deny the realization that's he's not really heartbroken over Bella, he's heartbroken over what he has become, and how he has destroyed them both.

-

It's late at night, the sky tinted with orange from the streetlights, and Jacob is not asleep. He's pretending to be, but Edward knows the difference in his breathing from too many hours spent awake and listening to his quiet workings of his lungs. Edward doesn't try to read Jacob's mind, but it nags at him, how Jacob is still thinking about something in the early, early hours of the morning.

The clock doesn't change. Edward waits.

"You're awake, aren't you," he says finally.

He can feel Jacob tense beside him.

"I know that you're not sleeping. What's wrong?"

After a moment, Jacob rolls over, propping his head up on one hand and studying Edward with opaque eyes. "Can't you see inside my head?" he replies.

It should sound more scathing than it is, but once again, the darkness and the quiet are working against him, leeching out the bite in the words and leaving behind only resignation.

Edward lets his eyelids flutter close, and reaches out to Jacob's mind. Tonight, the usual barriers aren't up, and tendrils of their thoughts connect.

_So fucking sad. I miss Bella, miss the old times. I can see right through you, you know, I know who you are. I want the truth. I want a new life. I want you._

_An image of the two of them, Edward's pupils blown wide open, mouth slick with spit, them kissing, them fucking..._

Edward tears himself away, so forcefully he ends up physically pushing himself back, coming close to the edge of the bed, fingers tearing into the stiff sheets. Jacob just watches him.

"You can't want that," Edward whispers, horrified.

Jacob keeps looking straight at him, like he can do what he thinks he can and see right through Edward. Maybe he does. "Why not?" he asks.

"Because you can't," Edward says, voice rising almost hysterically. "You, of all people, shouldn't want that."

"You've got something against fags?" Jacob says flatly, but his expression has turned faintly menacing.

It's not a new thought to Edward, homophobia—he'd lived in a time when sodomy was punished by death—but, after all the years he'd spent alone in his bed and uninterested in the company of women, he'd begun to wonder. A century's worth of self-reflection was enough to take care of any lingering doubts about his bisexuality. "It's not that," he says.

"Then why not?"

Edward swallows dryly."Because I'll hurt you," he rasps. "All I'll do is cause you pain."

"As much as you don't like to admit it, we _are _equals," Jacob retorts. "We're complete opposites, but we're equal. You can't hurt me any more than I'll let you."

Edward shakes his head. "I don't want to hurt you at all."

"Where did you think this was going, Edward? Why would you let it go this far if you didn't want it?"

Edward doesn't have an answer to that.

With a click, the air condition turns on, and the polyester curtain sway in faint breeze from outside the window. Jacob reaches out, touches Edward's cheek.

Edward doesn't say no. He doesn't push Jacob away. He doesn't do anything when Jacob pulls him forward and kisses him chastely, mouth and eyes closed, flat and peaceful in the musty motel room air.

-

* * *

Once again, thank you for the reviews, story alerts, favorites, author alerts, etc...it's awesome that people are not only reading this, but actually like it. Thanks!


	4. hope is dangerous

**chapter iv**

-

_When Alice came out of the big house, she was even paler than normal. Edward was staring out at the green pine forests, slowly and systematically pulling apart the leg of an iron chair, and didn't seem to notice her appearance on the back veranda. _

"_I bit her," she said._

_Twist, snap. Another useless scrap of metal came off the chair. "I know," he replied. "I heard her screaming."_

"_She'll be fine," Alice said, sounding remarkably assured, though her thoughts couldn't help but betray her words. "Got her in the pulmonary veins, straight into her heart. It shouldn't take too long now."_

"_I know," Edward said again. _

_Alice put her tiny hand on his shoulder, squeezing briefly, and added, "Carlise is looking after her. I _know_ she's going to be fine. We all pulled through, didn't we? And we were all in much worse shape than she is."_

"_I know," Edward said for the last time._

_Bella's screams echoed out of the open door, and the metal in Edward's hands snapped in half__._

-

The kiss doesn't last long. It was short by nature. Like a camera flash, quick and unexpected, then dying away into the darkness. Scene set, moment captured.

Surprisingly, it's Jacob who pulls away first. Edward stays where he is, watching him, waiting for his next move. It feels like he's watching this unfold from a great distance, from underwater, like he's not even there at all.

He sees the hard muscles of Jacob's back flex when he turns over, and sees him slip out of the bed, heading towards the bathroom. Edward props himself up on his elbows. "Where are you going?" he asks.

Jacob shoots him a glare. "Out."

"Where?" Edward repeats.

"Looking for Bella. That's what we're supposed to be doing. It's why we're even here in the first place." Jacob pulls on his shoes without looking up at Edward, fingers sharp and vicious on the laces.

"It'll be dawn soon," Edward points out.

_Good thing I'm not a vampire, then. _"I don't care."

"Jacob—"

"I'm not talking about this right now, all right?" Jacob snaps, standing up.

Edward sits up completely on the bed, watching Jacob go to the door. "Why not?"

"Why even bother asking?" Jacob counters., and for the first time, Edward sees the hurt underneath the anger.

"Because I want to know."

"Read my fucking mind then, and see if you can figure it out, because I have no fucking clue," he says, and slams the door so hard it splinters on the frame, breaking around the hinges. The shards of wood gape open slightly, splaying orange light from the streets across the frayed carpet.

Edward stares at the sliver of night between the door and the frame. He doesn't move. From what feels like years away, he can hear Jacob jump off the railing and hit the ground running, and he only realizes what it means after Jacob's already long gone.

He wishes they were on the road again.

-

"Hi Edward, it's Alice. I'm getting more visions, I'm positive Bella's in Phoenix now. I think something bad is going to happen, but I can't tell anything else, it's too murky, but I'm almost sure that...well. I think someone's going to die. Check up on her mother again, although I'm getting the feeling she's a dead end, it never hurts to be sure. Call me back when you get this, all right? I love you. Bye."

-

"It's Alice, again. You should pick up your phone more often. I think the Volturi have figured out where Bella is, too, so I know Felix at least will be in Phoenix in a few days. Call me. I love you."

-

"Edward. Are you there? If you are, please pick up. I'm getting worried."

-

"…Edward, please, everyone's really worried, I can't see you or the werewolf or Bella or even the Volturi, I just know someone is going to get hurt, maybe even die, I don't want anything bad to happen to you. Call me, please, I love you."

-

Out of a mutual lack of success, Jacob and Edward set out near the strip malls at one in the morning, footsteps oddly loud on the cracked sidewalks. Everybody else in Phoenix is either drunk or asleep.

They don't talk to each other. Not at first.

Eventually, though, Edward stops and sniffs the air, uneasiness prickling in the back of his mind. Jacob pauses as well, head cocked to the side.

"I can smell another vampire," Edward says. "It's not Bella, but…it's familiar."

Jacob raises an eyebrow. "How many bloodsuckers do you know?" he retorts.

"Not too many. That's why I'm worried."

Jacob reaches down and pulls off his shoes, almost absently, and Edward recognizes it as part of a preparation for a fight. "Just the one vampire?" he asks.

"Yeah." Edward has no blood for adrenaline to run through, but he feels the phantom chill of it anyways, stealing along his dried-out veins. He can hear Jacob's heart pounding from a few steps away.

_Focus,_ he reminds himself, and reaches out to the vampire's mind, connecting to their thoughts.

Then, a second later, he says, "Fuck."

"What?" Jacob asks, looking slightly unnerved.

It feels as though his entire body has seized up. If it's fear or just shock, he can't tell. Edward inhales forcefully, dragging a breath of gasoline-choked air into his non-responsive lungs. "It's one of the Volturi."

…_Bad smell, must be a werewolf, don't know what one of those is doing around here, thought they were all hunted out…werewolf and a vampire? Curious…Aro said to keep the Cullen alive, wanted him for some purpose, but he wouldn't mind it if I took out the werewolf…_

"It's Felix," Edward says tightly, reaching back to Jacob's mind instinctively.

"Not the cat, I assume," Jacob says, snickering quietly to himself before recovering when Edward glares at him. "Is he a danger to us?"

"He wants to kill you."

Jacob grins. He hasn't changed into a werewolf yet, but already his eyes are feral. "Excellent. I've been wanting to kill a vampire for a while now."

"Don't kill him. We need to find out what the Volturi are planning to do."

"We have Alice for that, don't we?" Jacob pulls off his shirt as well, socks, and then his jeans, leaving him in nothing but his boxers. "I'm going after him. Stop me if you can."

"Fuck," Edward mutters again. He's not going to be able to stop Jacob without hurting him. A month or so ago, that wouldn't have been a problem.

He sees Jacob grin, teeth bared like a snarl, and then he explodes out of his skin and into a massive wolf. Edward can do nothing but run after him down the street, hoping he doesn't die.

-

Felix is smart enough to realize that a werewolf is coming for him, but not smart enough to know to run away. So he stands his ground.

Jacob launches himself straight at the vampire, no bullshit, hackles up, and they collide with an impact that cracks the pavement beneath them. Late at night, no cars or witnesses, and that's something to be grateful for. They break apart, both snarling.

Felix is, at first, eager for the challenge—and maybe on another night he would've come out of this triumphant and unbroken—but tonight Jacob is fueled by rage and the vampire stands no chance against his fangs and claws.

When Felix leaps forwards, hands outstretched, Jacob ducks to the side easily, bloodlust gleaming in his eyes. He chases after Felix, and despite the speed of their movements, Edward sees it perfectly when the werewolf leaps onto the vampire and rips out his throat.

There's no spray of blood. Felix chokes anyways, reaching for the part of his neck that's no longer there, and Jacob takes a chunk out of his thigh while he's distracted.

It's hard to be consumed by pain as a vampire, though, and Felix recovers too quickly, knocking Jacob into a shop window. The glass shatters.

"Fuck," Edward hisses to himself. A second later, Jacob is back on his feet, growling low and threatening, and circles Felix again.

There isn't any blood when the fingers go as well. Felix bites off a howl of pain. Already Jacob is up, spitting out the fingers still in his mouth, moving in a tight circle around Felix. The vampire is beginning to look desperate, but any attempts to run are abortive; Jacob is too fast, too caught up in his anger, to let his victim go.

The fights ends when Jacob gets under Felix's guard again, ripping open the chest cavity. The only blood is Jacob's and the only breathing is his, harsh and loud in the night, but Felix is the one who's dying.

Edward stands to the side, watching them fight, watching the vampire slowly being ripped apart.

-

Eventually, the flames die down, and all that is left of Felix are a few wisps of ashes and the smell of burning venom. There is a slow hint of dawn on the horizon.

Jacob is covered in a hundred quickly healing scratches from the glass window, has a badly broken wrist, and what's probably a mild concussion. He is also very naked. Edward very pointed stares straight ahead.

"So how much are the Volturi going to hate us now?" Jacob asks, pulling on his pants and doing up the buckle with his good hand.

Edward tries looking for Felix's ashes, but only sees the road, grey and clammy in the night. The darker patches of more recent pavement are visible even in the low light. He exhales roughly.

"They're going to kill us."

Jacob looks strangely cheered by the thought. "We're so fucked," he says.

"We are," Edward agrees morosely.

"Well, now that it's official, want to keep looking for Bella?"

Edward reaches for his cell phone, feels the faint flash of the red light against his fingers. "In a minute," he replies, and dials Alice's number.

-

"Hi, Alice. I'm still alive. Jacob killed Felix, though, hopefully that's who you saw being hurt in your visions. I'll talk to you soon. Bye."

-

The night slides into the dawn. Edward and Jacob walk down the cracked sidewalks near the stripmalls.

They don't talk at first. The silence is peculiar; it's both awkward and easy by turns, broken only by the occasional passing car speeding past the traffic lights. Their footsteps are oddly loud.

Eventually Jacob clears his throat. "Hey," he says.

Edward looks over at him, eyebrows raised.

"Are you pissed at me?" Jacob asks.

The smell of fried food is pugent in the air. Edward closes his eyes, head tipped back, and replies, "Why would I be?"

"Because I kissed you. Because I killed that vampire. Hell, maybe because I broke my wrist, I don't know, there are plenty of reasons."

"There are."

It's not an answer, and they both know it. Jacob waits a few steps before demanding, "Well, are you pissed or not?"

Edward opens his eyes again. They're walking by a row of shops, clothing stores and coffee shops and groceries and tourist traps, moving at the upper limits of human speed, and Jacob is glaring at him. It's enough to make him smile a bit.

"I'm not mad at you," he says.

If anything, Jacob's eyes only narrow more. "So? Any questions? Comments? Do you have anything you'd like to share with me, or do you just have no opinion on this at all?"

"I wish you hadn't killed Felix, but I don't hold it against you."

That just makes Jacob look even angrier. "What about when I kissed you?" he demands. "What's your opinion on that?"

Edward looks away."I don't know how to explain it to you."

"Yeah, well, figure it out."

He's starting to walk too fast, fast enough that a passing jogger is giving them both a strange look. Edward sighs and reaches out to Jacob, grabbing his wrist and forcing him to stop. "Jacob."

"What?" the werewolf snaps, twisting out of Edward's grip.

"I'm not indifferent to you. I didn't want you to kiss me, but it's not because I didn't want it. Is that what you wanted to know?"

In the middle of a step, Jacob abruptly slows and stops, then turns to look at Edward. "What?" Jacob says. His eyes are wide, like old burnished coins, and vulnerable enough to remind Edward how young he really is." Yeah. I thought…well, never mind, you know already."

"Probably," Edward agrees, and looks at the Phoenix skyline. The sun is rising.

-

In the paper the next morning, the headlining story is about three young women coming home from a nightclub, brutally murdered at two in the morning, blood drained from their bodies; there was a picture of them beside the article, eyes drunkenly bright, a moment of life captured minutes before their deaths.

Edward crumples up the paper and throws it at the door, then rests his head in his hands, trying to control his shaking hands.

They're still nowhere near Bella.

-

"She's not in Phoenix anymore," Alice says into the cell phone.

It's just a routine call. There's nothing unexpected about it, but for a second, all Edward wants to do is see his family again, see Esme and Carlise and all his adopted brothers and sisters. He grips the edges of the phone tighter, and the thin, blunt sides crumple beneath his hands. He forces himself to let go.

"She's going back up to Seattle," Alice says. "She's coming back home."

The road beckons to them, stretched over hundreds of curving miles. Languorous under the hot sun and the purr of the car's engine. Wheels stuttering over the asphalt. It's like they've never been away.

And so they go on.

-

It's in yet another motel, baked under the cruel rays of the Californian sun and just off an exit from the interstate, that they stop at for the night. The Volvo lurches into the parking lot. Jacob cuts the engine.

"I can drive during the night, you know," Edward says, looking at the flickering neon lights of the motel, the vacancy sign beneath it.

"I know," Jacob says.

They sit in their separate seats for a moment. The windshield is dusty enough to be nearly opaque, and Edward makes a note to get the whole car tuned up when they get back home.

"So do you want to sleep? I'll take over…"

Jacob shakes his head before Edward can even unbuckle his seatbelt. "That's not why I stopped," he says, and leaves it at that.

Hands paused in the act of getting out of the car, Edward looks over at him, and sees only a tentative hope masked behind a raised eyebrow. "Why'd you stop, then?" Edward asks.

"For fuck's sake," Jacob says.

"_What_?"

"Can't you read minds?" Jacob snaps, rolling his eyes, and then.

Then he's shifting over from the driver's seat, foot colliding with the gearshift and the parking brake before he finally lurches to a stop on top of Edward. Involuntarily, Edward grabs his arms.

Jacob is suddenly close to him, one hand braced against the headrest of Edward's seat, the other on the dashboard. Close enough that he can feel Jacob's ragged breaths ghosting along his own face, like secondary breathing, close enough that he can see the golden tint in Jacob's irises. The world is a different place than it was a second ago.

"Do you…" Jacob begins.

Edward leans forward and kisses him.

After a moment of surprise, Jacob makes a pleased noise and shifts forward further, taking his hand off the headrest and curling it around Edward's neck. Jacob kisses with a certain kind of intensity, where he's a bit too sloppy and forward and when he bites Edward's lip, it's almost strong enough to break the skin. It's the first time Edward's kissed anybody who's taken charge the way Jacob has.

He presses Edward back until they're awkwardly piled against the passenger seat door, arms and legs tangled together. Edward winds his fingers through Jacob's hair and pulls.

"Fuck," Jacob breathes, and then licks Edward's lips before kissing him again, and again, and again.

The sun has set completely by the time Jacob pulls away, eyes dark and lips slick, and they're both panting. Edward doesn't even need the air. He can't help but to reach out and touch Jacob's face softly.

Jacob manages a smile. "Do you want to do this?" he asks, face carefully blank. His thoughts are a stream of _pleasepleaseplease._

Edward has had sex with Bella, when they were married and going to the University of Alaska. The sheets had been cold. Afterwards, Bella had claimed that she was fine, but when Edward stayed awake for long enough, she started shivering. When the sweat cooled and the afterglow faded, all that was left for her was a cold bed and a colder lover.

Jacob is not Bella.

It's an argument both for and against; Edward shouldn't be doing this with someone else, but he shouldn't have been with Bella like that, either.

Jacob is watching him carefully, the hope beginning to sink in his mind, and he says as casually as he knows how, "You don't have to…"

Breakable. Edward shouldn't be doing this. Not with him.

"Yes," Edward says, and Jacob's eyes darken when he smiles.

They manage to book a room, with the woman at the front desk only raising her eyebrows pointedly before handing them the keys, and as soon as they stumble through the door Jacob pins Edward against it, pulling at his shirt, nipping at his jaw.

"Why do you wear such fucking preppy clothes, man," he mumbles against Edward's lips, struggling to get it over Edward's head.

Edward shoves Jacob away and tugs the shirt off by himself, throwing it in the corner. Even the bland air of the room feels warm to his bare skin, the smell of dust and mildew suffocating, even with Jacob radiating heat and werewolf musk in front of him.

Jacob smirks at him, like he knows what he's thinking, then pokes him in the ribs. "You're a skinny bastard," he observes.

Edward grabs Jacob's hand. "I was dying of the flu when I was turned," he retorts.

This is not a new feeling, having someone look at him appreciatively and think, _he's beautiful_, but somehow it feels different when it's Jacob, who just raises his eyebrows and meets Edward's eyes, half-smiling. "Poor you," he says.

"We can't all be built like brick houses," Edward says, and then, "Have you ever done this before?"

Jacob shrugs and sits on the bed, kicking off his shoes and socks. "With girls, yeah. Guys…not so much." Above his head, the light from a passing car lights up the wallpaper, then disappeared into the distance. "C'mon, get over here."

The bedspread smells a bit like old blood, and Edward sits on it gingerly, hunger kindling deep in his chest despite the fact he wouldn't be able to drink Jacob's blood. "You shouldn't be doing this with me," Edward says.

He feels, rather then sees, Jacob rolling his eyes. "So you've said. Several times, even."

"It's true."

Heated fingers press on the underside of his jaw, forcing him to turn towards Jacob, and Edward finds himself meeting his gaze.

"I want to do this with you," Jacob says. It has the weight of a command, of a final statement, and he ducks his head and kisses Edward fiercely like it will erase all his doubts.

It doesn't, but Edward lets Jacob do it, lets himself be pressed back into the bedspread and opened up, pieces to pieces, skin to skin.

-

After the act is over, Jacob rolls over rests his chin on top of Edward's head. "How're y'feeling?" he mumbles, words blurring together with exhaustion.

"Fine," Edward says.

Jacob presses closer, winding their fingers together and kissing Edward's knuckles. "D'you regret it?" he asks.

"No."

"Me neither," Jacob says, eyes slipping closed, and Edward feels slightly sick from self-loathing. He squeezes Jacob's hand once, twice, then gets up and sits outside, staring up the hazy night sky.

-

Edward tries to avoid it the next night, tries to keep driving by all the seedy places off the highway, but Jacob shoots him a questioning look when the sky darkens and they still haven't stopped.

There is only so much rejection Edward is willing to serve, especially to Jacob. He pulls over at the next place they come across, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees Jacob smile.

-

It starts off much the same, with kissing and then falling onto the bed, working up to tugging on the buttons of their jeans and moving ever-faster, quick, sharp touches that would break anybody else's bones. It's part of why they're together like this. They can finally let themselves go.

Edward had to always be so careful with Bella. One careless movement, forgotten in the act of passion, could crush the tiny blood vessels in her skin and open up yawning bruises over her body. She'd said she didn't mind, but people began to give them strange looks, whisper about them behind their backs. That was part of the reason Edward gave in and let her be turned. Not because of the people, but because he couldn't stand hurting her anymore.

Looking back, it's just another moment of irony, another way Edward can hate himself for being so blind.

There's a sudden release of pressure from his arms, and Jacob falls onto his back beside Edward, breathing heavily. Edward looks over at him, surprised.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

At best, Jacob's glare is half-hearted, and mostly he just looks worn out. "You're not into this at all, are you?" he accuses.

Edward doesn't reply.

"Are you thinking about her?"

When faced with the truth, Edward is unable to deny it, and just swallows around the lump in his throat.

Sighing, Jacob rolls off the bed and heads for the bathroom, rubbing his eyes. "I thought so."

"Jacob, wait," Edward says, but it's too late, it's too soon.

"I don't know how many times I have to tell you I'm not her, Edward," Jacob says. The fact that he says it so simply, like he's simply stating the facts, is far more cutting then anything else he could say. "I'll just be a minute. You don't have to wait."

He goes into the bathroom, and Edward hears the lock click in the door, then the sound of the shower starting. The covers are slowly cooling down beneath him, leeched of Jacob's warmth.

Edward stares up at the white stucco ceiling. The nights seemed so much shorter when he could sleep.

Eventually, after several minutes of forgotten seconds, Jacob comes back, hair dripping water onto the floor. He hesitates. Then the mattress beside Edward dips, and he can't help the wash of relief that goes through him.

"Hey," Jacob says quietly.

"Hey."

"I would say I'm sorry—I am—but what I said, it's the truth." Jacob has his jaw set, like he's expecting an argument, but Edward is too tired to give him one.

"I know. I'm the one who should be sorry."

The tense energy in Jacob's body leaves him, and he slumps, hair hanging in front of his face. "You are pretty sorry, man," he cracks weakly, but it falls flat in the silent room.

The fact that he can't see Jacob's eyes bothers him, so he looks away, gazing at the cheap pine molding and air vent in the floor without really seeing any of it. "I want to do this right," Edward finds himself saying. "I just don't know how."

Jacob's hand creeps over to his, and his big hands encircle Edward's wrists. "You think I know what's going on with this?" he retorts. "For fuck's sake, I'm not even gay."

"I think having sex with another man makes you gay, Jacob."

"Asshole. You know what I mean."

Edward snorts quietly into his pillow, and he can feel Jacob's answering grin on the back of his neck.

"We don't need to figure it out right now," Jacob says. "It's not like either of us are going anywhere."

"Yeah," Edward breathes, nearly silent into the still air, and Jacob kisses the back of his neck. He can feel Jacob's eyelashes brush his skin when he closes his eyes.

It's only much, much later, in the darkness where Jacob is firmly asleep, that Edward says, "I can't do this."

Jacob is sleep-heavy and warm, unseeing eyes turned towards the future, heart beating strong and fast.

Edward is only cold.

* * *

Just a small note regarding the sex: I wrote as far I was I was comfortable (being female means I have no first-hand experience with gay were/wolf vampire sex, so, there's that), so I'm sorry if anybody wanted to read about some hardcore anal penetration, but...not going to happen. Sorry. (They did have sex, though, in case that confused anyone. If anything, it was missionary position, where they gazed lovingly into each other's eyes and came at the same time. Edward was the bottom. True factz!

Per the usual, thank you to you all who reviewed, faved, etc, I feel so loved! I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I'll see you next time!


	5. breathe me

**chapter v**

-

It's raining on the highway to Forks. The windshield wipers are having trouble again, and the road is barely visible under the thick layer of raindrops rolling down the windshield. Up ahead, Edward can make out the refracted red light of taillights, speeding down the waterlogged highway ahead of them. The familiar urge to give chase tugs at his feet.

"We should pull over," Jacob says.

Edward squints out the window, though he can't see past all the rain, the rivulets of water blown horizontal. "It'll be fine," he says.

"Edward. Remember what happened last time you tried to drive with the windshield wipers broken? People nearly died. Pull over."

Much as he wants to keep going, he can hear Jacob's temper beginning to fray in his head, and he doesn't want another fight. Not now, and not again. He cranks the steering wheel to the right.

The Volvo hits the gravel shoulder of the road with a bump, wheels grinding on the tiny rocks, and lurches to a full stop. The whole car is deteriorating. He knows this, that every time he pushes the engine a little too fast it warps a little too much from the friction, that the windshield wipers and the dashboard is coming close to melting completely. For now, the car is silence.

In the absence of movement, the raindrops are unnaturally amplified. Jacob flips a page in his magazine.

"We need to get to Forks," Edward says after a moment.

Jacob flips another page. "We'll get there."

Edward sighs. His fingers pick out a beat on the steering wheel. He waits a little longer.

"We need to get to Forks as soon as possible," he says again.

"And I said we'll get there," Jacob replies calmly, hands paused on his magazine. He's looking directly at Edward. "Calm the fuck down."

"Jacob," Edward stresses, grinding his teeth together, "This could be the end of all this, everything we've been working for, and you want me to calm down."

Jacob gives him a long, considering look with eyes blackened by the night, then shakes his head and looks back down at his magazine. It's on a centerfold of an old Chevrolet Impala right now, dark and intimidating. Light rolls across the glossy pages when another car drives past them.

"Last night," Jacob begins, voice carefully neutral. "I heard you. You said you couldn't do this."

It's the truth. It catches Edward completely off-guard, because while he is used to being inside people's minds, it's rare that they come into his, that they know his moments of weakness and his secrets. The truth is something that Edward can't deny, no matter how much he wants to. There isn't anything he can say.

Jacob's eyes search his face, and then he nods, and looks back down at his magazine. Turns to a new page.

"I wish you would stop lying to me," he says, closing his magazine and shoving it into the glove compartment. "It's clearing up a bit, we can probably head out again."

Silently, Edward puts the car into first, and pulls back onto the rain-drenched highway.

-

They go back to Forks, to the old house, and Edward feels a wash of relief when he cuts the engine in the familiar driveway and sees Alice leaning on the porch railing, smiling.

The forest around the house is heavy with greenery, ancient trees brushing the underbelly of the clouds, and Edward breathes in the scent of decay and plant growth with something like relief.

"Glad to be back?" Jacob says, almost conversationally.

"Yeah."

There's a flicker, a moment of understanding reached between them, but just as suddenly as it had appeared, Jacob ends it, opening up his car door and cracking his neck. Edward follows him out of the car.

"Edward," Alice calls. She sounds calm, but there's an undercurrent of joy in her voice, like a child's. Sometimes it's hard to remember she's ancient and brittle, sometimes, when she looks this happy. "You came home."

He can't help it, he walks faster and when she hugs him, he pulls her close, closing his eyes for a moment. Her arms are almost warm around his neck.

"Oh, Edward," she says. "I was so worried."

"I missed you," he replies.

Pulling back, she studies him, cupping the side of his face with her tiny hand. "We all missed you, too," she says. "Everybody else is inside."

Jacob comes ambling up the drive, hands in his pockets, looking up the front of the house with detached curiosity. "Hello, Alice," he says.

She regards him, eyes guarded. "Hello, Jacob. Esme's invited you to stay with us for as long as you need to."

"That won't be necessary," Jacob replies.

Edward shoots him a look, but Jacob looks away, studying the forest, and when Edward tries to crack into his thoughts he just gets flashes of wolves, of cloying, bittersweet memories, and he stops trying to read Jacob's thoughts.

Alice is watching both of them when he looks back at her, and she just shakes her head. Her eyes are still unreadable. "It's no trouble, Jacob," she says, voice oddly gentle. "We'd be happy to have a friend of Edward's at the house."

A slight wind rustles the tops of the cedars. Even from a distance, Edward can hear Jacob's teeth clench, see his jaw flex and hands form fists in the pockets of his sweater.

"We're not friends," he says flatly. "We're just fucking."

To her credit, Alice doesn't even blink. She knows this, of course. She knew if before anything even happened.

"You're still welcome to stay here," she says, meeting his gaze and holding it.

A crow flies overhead. Edward watches it flap, a black silhouette against the sullen clouds, until it drops behind the trees and out of sight. Alice is small and resolute beside him, still holding his hands.

Jacob is the one who looks away first, dropping his gaze. "All right," he says. "I'll stay."

Alice smiles, briefly, but it cracks the emotionless mask of her face. "Good," she says. "Esme will be pleased."

Again, Edward tries to catch Jacob's eyes, but Jacob doesn't look back, just trails after them when Alice tugs on Edward's hand and pulls him inside the house.

It's the same as always—nothing changes when you live long enough—and Esme is frying something on the stove nobody uses. She beams when she sees Edward, hurries towards him and pulls him into a hug. Her hands smell like flour and her hair like vanilla.

"Oh, honey," she says. "I'm so glad you're home."

Edward returns the hug, feeling slightly displaced without the road underneath him, but he's already relaxing back into being home. "Hi, Esme," he says.

She sees Jacob lurking behind him and, to everybody's surprise, goes to him and envelops him in a hug. "You must be Jacob. It's so nice to finally meet you, I've been hearing about you for ages. Do you like stir-fry? I can make you something else if you don't."

Looking bewildered, Jacob pats her awkwardly on the back, even managing to give her a smile when she releases him. "Stir-fry sounds good," he says, finally looking at Edward. eyebrows raised. Edward just smiles at him.

Humming, Esme goes back into the kitchen, shaking the frying pan on the stove. Edward hasn't remembered how pleasant it is to come home and smell food, even if he can't eat it.

Jasper, followed by Emmett, lingers by the door for a moment before coming into the room. Emmett enfolds Edward in a bear hug and says, "Hey, man, where've you been?"

"Across the country," Edward replies, feeling his bones creak under the pressure of Emmett's embrace. "How are you doing?"

Emmett releases him, grinning. "Not too bad at all. You should've seen it, Edward, I took down a moose in Northern Canada, it was so much more difficult then fighting a cougar."

"You would know," Alice quips, and they both snicker.

Alice catches Edward's puzzled look and says, "I'll tell you later, Edward, it's actually a pretty funny story."

Coming in last, Rosalie merely nods at him, and then glares at Jacob, who is looming in the doorway.

"What's the dog doing here?" she sneers, looking him up and down with distaste.

They look at each other, and Alice lifts her chin. "I invited him," she replies. "He's a friend of Edward's and he's helping us find Bella. That's reason enough."

"Stinking dog," Rosalie mutters, turning on her heel and walking out of the huge, echoing front hall.

Esme clears her throat, and smiles warmly at Jacob. "It's a pleasure to have you here, Jacob," she said. "Can I get you anything to drink?"

"No, thanks," he says tightly, and the main hall again falls into silence, despite all the people inside, leaning on the counters. Edward can see dust motes floating by the windows, highlighted by the faint grey light.

His nails bite into his palms, and he relaxes his hands, forces his face into silence. "I'll see you all later, all right? Come on, Jacob," he says. "I'll show you your room."

-

Late at night, they end up fucking on the couch, since there is no bed, Jacob's hands biting into Edward's hips, breath hot and sharp on the back of his neck. Edward leans into it, eyes closed, and feels Jacob mouth 'love you' against the back of his neck when he comes.

-

"The Volturi are in Seattle," Alice says. She lets her hand rest on the glossy wooden frame of the grand piano, the one Edward is currently tuning up.

He carefully extracts himself from underneath the cover of piano. He can still hear the off-key reverberations of middle C echoing into the air, vibrating away into nothing, still slightly too sharp. "The Volturi are still chasing her down?" he asks. "Don't they have better things to do?"

"One of their own was killed," she says, and Edward meets her eyes, sees how dark they are. "I know about that, by the way. I saw Jacob kill him."

There doesn't seem to be a point in denying it, so Edward just shrugs and plunks out a few discordant cords on the piano, fingers trailing over the dusty ivory keys. "I couldn't stop him without hurting him," he says.

"Do you love him?"

Edward hits a high E, then stops playing. "Not enough. Not as much as he deserves."

"Edward…" Alice says, sighing, then stops. "He's just a boy. He can't even buy alcohol legally yet."

"You don't know him."

I know _you_. You've got all of us, and Jacob has nobody anymore." Alice glares at the side of his head, fingers tightening on the edge of the piano. The cracking of wood is audible in the empty room. "It's not right, Edward, he's alone and he's dependent on you now, and I know what you're planning to do."

"Don't you ever get tired of seeing the future?" Edward snaps.

She pins him beneath her black glare. "Only when you hurt people."

"I never wanted to hurt anybody. Damn it, Alice! I don't want to be responsible for everybody's happiness!" Edward's voice started to rise, echoing off the two-story glass windows, overlooking the darkness of the forest. Muscles across his shoulders tense, drawing him closer into himself, fingers accidentally jamming down on the piano keys to add another discordant note to the scene. "Do you know what it was like with Bella? I gave her everything she'd ever wanted. I gave her all of me. And look what happened to her."

Alice's black eyes are burning with anger, in a way that Edward has never seen before, and part of the piano comes clean off in her hands. "Edward. You fucked up with Bella, all right? You fucked up with her from the start. I didn't say anything because I was glad that you were happy, believe me, but you controlled every single fucking thing she did! Don't say you gave her everything, because all you ever did to her was take."

It's like being slapped in the face. Edward takes a step back, bare feet on the cold floor, and feels his chest seize up. "I didn't," he says, barely more than a whisper. "I loved her."

"And obviously that wasn't enough." Looking down at her hands, Alice brushes off the splinters, letting them fall to the floor like they're only bits of wood. Her voice, too, is softer now, the anger there burnt out for lack of fuel. "Look at your life, Edward. You're not the victim here."

With that, she turns and walks away, leaving Edward speechless by the ruined piano.

-

Jacob is sprawled on the couch in Edward's room, an old book propped on his chest and a slight scowl on his face. He barely looks up when Edward comes into the room, just shakes the book like it'll rearrange the words, and says to him, "Man, I don't know how you can read this, it's like it's not even English."

"That's because it's not," Edward says absently. "That one's in French, I think."

"Oh. That explains why I'm not understanding it."

Jacob curls his legs in a bit, and Edward sits down at the opposite end of the couch, staring into space. He feels strangely empty, ears still buzzing, and barely notices when Jacob prods him with a foot.

"You're ruining my lounging, asshole."

"Sorry."

Jacob frowns at him, but continues, "Do you have any normal books, or just the twenty copies of the Bible that I found lying around? Because nobody should have that many copies of the Bible unless they're like, Charles Mason or someone, I don't know…"

"You heard Alice and I, didn't you," Edward says abruptly.

The foot jammed into his side stills, and then he hears Jacob sigh and sit up further, dropping the book on the ground. "Yeah, I did. Wolf senses and all."

Edward keeps looking down, staring at his pale hands and rubbing at the unmarked skin. No scars or wrinkles; nothing to show he could be human, that he had once lived and breathed. "I thought you'd be pissed," he says. "You don't like it when I screw up."

Jacob just shrugs. "Why do you think I was always so worried about Bella back in the day? Remember that one time you dismantled her truck so she couldn't come visit me? It doesn't exactly scream healthy relationship, you know."

"No, it doesn't," Edward says softly. "It's just…I was in love with her. I know I was. I thought what I was doing was the best thing for her. For us." He looks down at his hands again, the unbreakable exoskeleton. "Or maybe just for me."

Sighing, Jacob sits up and reaches out, wrapping an arm around Edward's shoulder and pulling him closer. "Love screws you up, man," he says, but there's no judgment in his tone, which is why Edward leans into his chest and breathes out, letting himself go limp against Jacob's arms. "It hit you and Bella hard, and I think you just crossed the line between love and obsession, you know? But you'll change and grow from it. And stuff. Fuck, I don't know."

That coaxes a hoarse laugh out of Edward, and he pulls Jacob's hand towards his, lacing their fingers together and turning their palms over. Small scars and imperfections dot the dark skin, and Edward realizes he can't even remember what he looked like as a human.

Jacob flips their hands back over, hiding his own, and tightens his fingers around Edward's palm. "Edward?" he asks. "Stop being so quiet, it's freaking me out."

Edward doesn't reply, not at first, just listens to the quiet pump of Jacob's heart, the sounds of his family in other parts of the big empty house.

The room smells stale, like nobody has lived in it for a very long time. He can see where Jacob went through his CDs and put them away in the wrong places, where the dust has been shifted. And he thinks that maybe, for once, he shouldn't make Jacob fight for everything.

"I don't think I have a soul," he admits. "That's why I have all the Bibles, because I keep hoping that something will be different in a new one, but…I'll always be the same age. I'll always look the same. And I wonder if I'll even be able to change myself, because nothing else about me ever will."

For a few moments, Jacob is silent, but Edward can feel his ribs rise as he inhales.

"Edward," he says carefully. "For someone with so many books, you're kind of stupid."

Edward snorts, surprised.

"Of course you have a soul. You can think, although sometimes I doubt it. You have feelings. Where does that come from if it's not from your soul, huh?" Jacob raps his knuckles against Edward's head and says affectionately, "You dumbass."

Something prickles under Edward's skin, new and unexpected. He lets it slip away, dissipate into the colourless air, and feels Jacob's pulse through his frail human skin.

"I'm glad it's you, Jacob," he says, voice quiet as the room itself, simply moving through the two of them on the way into the shadows of memory. "Out of anybody else in the world. I'm glad it's you."

Jacob's arms tighten around Edward for a brief instant, but he has no words to share, not even in his mind. They silently sit together for a few more minutes.

Then Jacob speaks up, shifting his legs until both of them are comfortable on the leather couch, and asks, "Are we going to Seattle in the morning?"

Edward thinks of the open road, the roar of the car on the highway, and says, "Yes."

-

The dawn breaks gloomy and wet, rain pervasively working its way through the doors and windows and leaving the atmosphere sticky and damp. Carlisle is in the hospital, working, but Esme brings Edward a cooler full of blood and makes Jacob waffles for breakfast, which he devours with alarming speed.

Edward goes out to the car with blood cooler, trying to ignore how Jasper is leaning on the doorway, watching him. The cooler barely fits in the trunk of the Volvo, and for a moment Edward wonders what would happen if they got pulled over and the cops wanted to check in the back.

He shakes his head and slams the truck shut, walking towards the house, where Jasper is still waiting, studying him.

"Alice is worried about you," Jasper says, scarred face impassive.

"She was angry at me yesterday," says Edward shortly, walking by him and into the living room, and wishing he hadn't when Jasper follows him.

Jasper keeps talking. "It doesn't mean she's not worried about you. Edward," he says, voice impatient, "She didn't tell me. I managed to figure it out for myself."

Edward looks out the window, studying the pattern of raindrops rolling down the glass.

"For God's sake, just look at me," Jasper snaps.

Unwillingly, Edward does. Jasper's eyes are a faded gold, which probably meant he and Emmett had been off hunting a few days before, but they're bright with irritation. "Everything has become a lot tenser since you ran off with the werewolf, including my relationship with Alice, because all she can do is worry about whether you jumped the gun yet." he snaps, and catching Edward's expression, adds, "Yes, I know about you and the werewolf too. Did you forget you're not the only one with powers?"

Even in anger, Jasper is calm and precise, but his thoughts radiate from him, hazy and red, like heat from a fire. Edward feels the gaping edge of panic yawn out in front of him.

Jasper breathes out sharply. No doubt he is reading Edward's emotions, just like Edward is reading his thoughts.

"I didn't tell anybody else, if that's what you were wondering," he says. "Though it's amazing nobody else realizes, the way you two act. I thought you were in love with Bella."

"I was," Edward says. Jasper is still looking at him, eyes and mind accusing, so he adds, "So was Jacob."

"That's not exactly an explanation, Edward."

The door is still open; it creaks in a breeze, open further, and Edward sees the car in the driveway, ready to go. "No, it's not," he agrees. "It's the reason this is happening, though."

He looks at Jasper for a moment, and feels a rush of almost painful affection for him, for the fact that they've been brothers. How they've been across the country and back, all those years from high school to university to jobs and then repeating the cycle again, all these things about his family that he's nearly forgotten in the fog of grief after Bella.

"I'm sorry that I've hurt Alice," Edward says. "And I'm sorry that I've hurt you. When I get back from Seattle, I'll try to make it right."

Jasper tilts his head, considering him. His eyes soften. "I'll take you up on that," he says eventually. "Come here, you idiot."

They embrace, briefly, and then Jasper touches Edward's chest with his hand, eyes closed in concentration. Calm, like cool water after the burn, seeps through Edward, and Jasper steps back, smiling a bit.

"I'll see you in a few days," Jasper says.

Giving him a half-smile in return, Edward turns and walks out the door, closing it with a gentle click behind him, and feels the rain pearl across his skin.

-

It takes three hours to drive to Seattle, rain swooping down on the windshield, wheels rumbling under the car, like it has been so many times before and so many miles ago. Edward is awake, wide awake. The road reaches up into the sky.

Like so many times before, they go on.

* * *

Hey guys, I'm sorry it took so long to update. I was off in a cabin in the middle of the woods, and then when I got back school had started, which is sadly getting in the way of writing time. This should be the second-to-last (or third-to-last, either way) chapter, which is why it's so short, but the last chapter is probably going to be really, really long. So. That's good, I guess?

Thank you all so much for reading this and reviewing! I'll see you next chapter.


	6. running up that hill

**chapter vi**

-

The roads don't change. No matter how far or fast Edward drives, the roads remain steadfast in the paths they wind around the country, leading down to the same places over and over again. It never changes. Sometimes, though, he wishes they would, that he would reach somewhere different.

They arrive in Seattle on a rainy afternoon; hand over hand on the steering wheel, eyes watchful through the constant thump of the windshield wipers. Something, hope or fear, is chasing Edward. He can feel the end of the chase swelling up around him, like water at the high tide, and the thought curls the edges of his mind with fear. The end.

"Edward?" Jacob says from beside him, eyebrows raised.

Edward shakes his head. "It's nothing."

The ending is coming, and for the first time in his life, Edward can't avert it.

-

Seattle is a rainy, grey city, with oppressively tall skyscrapers stabbing into the sky. Six steps down the street away from the Volvo, Jacob shakes raindrops out of his thick hair, pulling a face, and Edward forgets to look away quickly enough. Jacob catches the look.

"I've forgotten how damn rainy wet it is on the coast," he complains, running a hand through his hair and making it stand upright. "We should've stayed in California."

"It rains almost as much there," Edward points out.

Rather than replying, Jacob pops up the collar of his jacket, hunching his shoulders until his face is mostly covered. "You're a regular little ray of sunshine," he grumbles. "How far away is this rental place?"

"A couple blocks."

"Cool," Jacob says, grinning. "Are you going to make me breakfast?"

"I'm going to steal blood from the butchers. You can get your own food."

Shaking his head, Jacob elbows him in the side, saying, "It's like you don't even care that I'm going to starve to death."

His eyes are dark, but when he looks up to the clouded sky they almost reflect the dull light, raindrops smattering across the sharp curve of his cheekbones, irises are almost translucent. Edward looks away again.

"Dude, you're kind of freaking me out with all the staring," Jacob says. "Something on your mind?"

Edward shakes his head, pressing the crosswalk button and looking across the street. He can't explain it, the sudden urge to study every angle of Jacob's smile, the blunt lines of his jaw and the tiny creases in the corners of his eyes. He just keeps snatching glimpses, covertly trying to piece it together in his mind. "Not really," he retorts.

"If I could read your mind, this would be so much easier on the both of us," Jacob says, sighing. "We wouldn't even have to talk."

The crosswalk figure lights up and they start across the street under the accusing glares of the waiting cars, headlights bright through the rain.

"Probably," Edward agrees. They both step onto the curb as the red hand starts to flash, and keep walking. There are only a few other people on the streets, probably because it's raining, but the streets are choked with cars, lights refracting in Edward's eyes until his blinks the raindrops away. The heavy clouds make it seem like the night has started early.

They don't talk again until they get to the condo, which is set in the corner of a small block of older buildings near the heart of the downtown, a bit off the main roads. The building itself is old and rather ugly, but still better than the majority of motels they'd been in for the past few months.

"Which one?" Jacob asks, looking around the place with interest.

"The one on the corner. Come on, the rain's getting worse."

One of the drains near the parking lot is clogged, and Edward doesn't realize he's going through the puddle until Jacob asks, "Aren't you cold?"

Edward looks at him, surprised. "No. Why would I be?"

"No reason." The bottoms of Jacob's jeans are wet and drag on the pavement, and his hair is plastered over his forehead, dripping into his eyes. "You're only wearing a shirt, though."

Edward looks down, registering his bare arms and the soaking cotton of his shirt. "Oh. I forgot."

"Obviously," Jacob replies, sighing, and starts to walk again. At the front door, Edward notices other small marks of neglect; spider webs in the corners, chipped paint, dusty windows. The door's lock is sticky, reluctant to release the key, but with enough jiggling Edward can hear the tumblers falling into place inside. He opens the door.

The room smells like fresh paint and industrial carpeting. All the furniture is new and decent, and there are a few bland landscape paintings on the walls, likely produced in bulk. Edward has an odd feeling of familiarity, the way he feels in banal rooms imitating home, like this could be a place he once knew.

Behind him, Jacob closes the door. "Nice place," he says, pulling off his jacket and tossing it on a chair.

"It's clean," Edward replies, putting the keys down on the table and plucking the wet fabric of his shirt away from his chest. "I'm going to go back for the Volvo, we can't leave it there overnight."

He's almost at the door before Jacob says, almost tentative, "Edward?"

Edward pauses, but doesn't turn around. The doorknob beneath his hand is faux-gold, and tarnished, almost black in some parts. "Yes?"

"Do you…" Jacob falters, then takes a deep breath. "If you find Bella…you'll be able to do it, right? You won't…"

Edward is silent.

The rain, when he opens the door, is loud enough to drown out anything else Jacob might have said.

-

He sees her for an instant, right before he reaches the car.

She's in the window of an apartment above the street, clearly visible despite the lack of light in her window. There is no pretense about her presence there, nothing to show that she's playing coy, like she's simply there by coincidence. Red eyes and red lips curve up in a smile. No surprise on her face, or resignation, or even fear or happiness. There's only an acceptance that wherever she goes, he will follow, driven by an unstoppable force outside his own hatred or love. Edward knows that they are both incapable of changing now.

Their gazes meet for an instant.

With a snap, she closes the blinds, and the sight of her red eyes burns against the back of his retinas when he closes his eyes and leans against the side of the Volvo, trying to breathe.

She's back.

-

By the time he returns to the condo and parks the car, Jacob has made himself at home, eating Indian takeout and listening to a classic rock channel on the radio. The air smells like curry.

"Nobody stole the hubcaps, did they?" Jacob asks absently.

Edward stares at him, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

Jacob looks up, and his expression changes from joking to worried. "Shit, did they really?"

"No," Edward manages to say, closing the door behind him and leaning on it. He can feel the hinges bowing under the pressure. "I saw her, Jacob."

Jacob flinches. His muscles bunch up under his skin, Edward can see how he forces them to relax, puts on a mask of calm. "You saw Bella? Where?"

"It was near the where we parked the car," Edward says. "She was in one of the apartments. Above a clothes shop, I think. I'm not sure."

Jacob breathes out sharply, his half-full box of takeout forgotten. "Fuck."

"We have to go after her," says Edward, almost to himself.

Already getting up, Jacob is boxing up the food and putting it in the fridge, which is otherwise completely empty and unlit. "Yeah. Thanks for coming back to get me. Let's go."

Going from house to the car to the streets, they are like wraiths, never at rest for long enough to become comfortable. Edward slams the door behind them and twists the car keys in his hand, already itching to go somewhere new.

-

"I' m sorry, we can't let people up into the apartments. Company policy." The man working the desk seems anything but apologetic, though, and has a small smirk playing around his mouth underneath his moustache. "I'm sure you'll understand."

Edward and Jacob exchange a brief look. "We're undercover cops," Jacob tries.

The man's smile just gets wider. "Then I'm sure you'll have some identification."

Jacob shoots Edward and anxious glance, but Edward doesn't share it, just steps up to the desk and says, "How's this for I.D.?"

He punches the man in the face.

Jacob hoots with appreciation somewhere in the background, but Edward ignores him in favor of grabbing the man's shirtfront and yanking him forward until he's sprawled out on the desk, fingers scrabbling for purchase.

"Listen," Edward snarls. "We don't have time for this. Either you let us look at the apartments, or I'll break you into tiny pieces before I actually get around to killing you."

For all of his smugness before, the man is a mess now, blood trickling down his face. The sight of it makes Edward painfully thirsty.

"I can't," the man says, voice breaking. "You'd have to go through the tenant's doors, and I'm new here, I don't have access to the keys."

Edward doesn't let him go, but looks over at Jacob, who stares back with raised eyebrows. "Break down the doors," he orders.

Jacob's eyes flicker, but all he says is, "Whatever you want," and walks out of sight. A second later and there is a deafening crash.

"Oh, god," the man sobs, and Edward takes enough pity on him to knock him out and leave him lying face-down on the desk, going over to the hallway.

Jacob is standing on top of the door, bits of plaster clinging to his clothes, looking pleased with himself. "Always wanted to do that," he says.

There's a staircase beyond the remains of the doorframe, leading up to the apartments. Edward stares at it. It's lit by a lone florescent light that keeps flickering, making the shadows dart across the stairwell like living things. "Let's keep moving."

"You know, I've forgotten that you can be like that," Jacob muses, following Edward up the staircase.

"Like what?"

"Vicious," Jacob says, shooting him a brief smile. "It's not a bad thing. Just haven't seen it in a while."

Choosing not to reply to that, Edward hits the top of the staircase and slows down. There are five doors in the hallway, three of them facing the street, and he picks the closest one to them. He raps his knuckles against it hard enough to dent the wood. "Police!" he yells. "Open the door!"

"They're going to ask for I.D.," Jacob mutters behind him, miming holding a gun.

Sure enough, when the skinny boy opens the door a crack, the sliver of his eye showing is suspicious. "You don't look like police," he says.

Jacob and Edward exchange a look, and Edward shakes his head. "We're not. Sorry."

They move onto the next door, repeating the script. This time, a tall black woman appears in the doorway, looking bored. "What?" she says.

"Wrong door," Jacob explains, giving her his best smile. "Sorry to trouble you."

There's only one apartment left; the last one, the numbers on it peeling off. Feeling strangely light-headed, Edward knocks on the door. There's no response.

"Knock harder," Jacob instructs, flashing a smile to the people they'd disturbed before, who were looking on from their doorways.

"I think this is it," Edward says, and drawing his foot back, kicks the door off its hinges.

The painful high of hope comes crashing down after a few seconds, when they step into the main room and find it empty, save for dust, undisturbed on the scuffed linoleum floors.

Jacob's footsteps are conspicuous, especially when he slows and stops, shifting from foot to foot. The small bones in his ankles crack. "I don't think this is it," he begins, but trails off.

They both see it at the same time. Edward starts towards it, dust swirling around his feet. There's something written in red on the window, faint in the dark.

It's a crudely drawn heart, with the initials E.C + B.S.C 4EVER written inside.

"Fuck," Jacob says quietly, moving up behind Edward. "Is that in lipstick?"

It's too dark to be lipstick.

"Blood," Edward replies, licking his thumb and rubbing at the red lines. It smears, but underneath the glass is scoured, where Bella's fingers scraped across the glass. His hands are numb. "Go check the other rooms," he says to Jacob, noticing as if from a great distance how shaky his voice sounds.

He already knows what's going to be in them.

-

In total, there are three dead girls, all of them waif-thin teenagers with faces that might have once been pretty, before they had been completely smashed in and bled dry.

"Fuck," Jacob says, and then there is only the silence of the dust, settling back onto the limbs of the corpses like it had been there all along. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. They were all just children.

-

Edward can still see the girls, hours later in the condo, staring at him with their bleeding eyes. Orange from the streetlights manages to shine through the slats of the blinds, marking the curve of Jacob's shoulder, and the occasional headlights of a passing car makes the shadows flinch across the walls.

Jacob stirs beside him, hand groping for Edward's wrist. "You okay?" he asks, voice sleep-muffled.

"I'm fine," Edward says. "Go back to sleep."

If Edward was still human, he wouldn't be able to see the tiny furrows in Jacob's forehead, the slackness of sleep still lingering in his normally tense jaw. If Edward was still human, he'd have been dead for almost a century, and would've never seen Jacob's face at all. He can't decide if that's a curse or a blessing.

Instead of going back to sleep, Jacob pulls Edward down beside him, shifting until they're pressed together and then they're kissing languidly. Edward can't help the tiny noise that escapes him. Can't help the way his fingers curl over the back of Jacob's neck, keeping him from moving away.

Taking that as encouragement, Jacob kisses him deeper, wetly; he presses him back into the mattress, leaving his hands heavy on Edward's shoulders and licking into his mouth. There's no air left for urgency between them, not in a room this dark and lonely, where all they can do is try to find each other through the shadows.

They don't stop kissing. Not even, later, much later, when Jacob pushes into his body, his edges fading in the dim light. There is nothing but the moment, the infinite second, the two of them, together. Edward turns his head to the side, shuddering out a breath, and Jacob strokes across his face, big hands warm and damp against Edward's cool skin. Edward can't stop shaking.

"I love you," Jacob says, barely more than a ghost of a breath against his neck.

He starts moving, slow at first, and Edward can't help the grating moan he makes, deep in his throat. Jacob bites his neck and says, "You love me too."

Edward convulses, shakes his head.

"You love me," Jacob repeats, chest heaving; whether from emotion or from exertion, Edward can't tell. "You love me."

It's different from all the other fucks they've had, Edward begins to realize, only when it's too late to stop. Things between them have changed, again. All the times before felt almost anonymous, like they were just using each other because being broken together was better than being broken alone.

This time is different.

It's like the world is perpendicular; like it's paper warped with water, all the colors and memories running together like paint and Edward's head is spinning, he can't stop shaking and he can't stop saying Jacob's name, over and over again, and he never wants to stop feeling like this. And before he can stop himself he is telling Jacob he loves him and is coming apart in his arms as the world goes black.

-

The next morning, neither of them really knows what to say, so they don't say anything at all. Edward sucks on a blood bag while reading the paper, and Jacob sits at the other end of the table, eating the leftover takeout. The only sound is the rustle of paper and Jacob's noisy chewing.

Edward lays the paper on the table, turning it so Jacob can see. "The tenants phoned to police after we left," he says, pointing to the article and trying to ignore the faint bruises on Jacob's arms. "They managed to find the girl's families."

"Any mention of us?" Jacob asks, scanning the article.

Edward shrugs. "They said two unidentified young men discovered the bodies, and that they're currently suspects in the murder."

Snorting, Jacob returns to his tandori chicken and dips it in the curry. "Should we break out the fake mustaches?"

"Couldn't hurt," Edward says, and turns to the next page in the paper. In the pocket of his bag by the door, his phone rings.

"Better pick it up, you know it's going to be Alice," Jacob mumbles around a mouthful of chicken.

Rolling his eyes, Edward gets up and rummages around in his bag, pulling out the cell and flipping it open. "Hello?" he says.

It's not Alice. The voice is both strange and horribly familiar, and as soon as he manages to place it in his mind, he wishes he hadn't.

"Edward," Caius says, voice crackling from lack of signal strength and malice. "We need to talk."

It's like his insides freeze, a physical clenching of his middle, and his hands start to tremor. At the breakfast table, Jacob hums a line of a Rolling Stones song and pushes chickpeas around his plate with a fork, unaware of anything wrong.

"How—" Edward begins, only to be cut off.

"Don't say anything I don't tell you to say. We know where you are, and if you alert the shapeshifter to our presence, we'll kill him first and make you watch."

"What do you want?" Edward asks, careful to keep his voice neutral.

Caius laughs, short and harsh. Flashes of Italy, the fear and confinement, hits Edward with paralyzing force. "You'll find out soon enough. Relations between the Volturi and your family have been…strained, as of late. Now, here's what we wish you to do. You will tell the werewolf your sister phoned, and that she wants you to go to the downtown area. Alone. We'll find you then."

The line disconnects, leaving only a dial tone behind. Edward stares at the screen of his phone, mind reeling, and tries to think of anything at all that isn't _we're all going to die._

"What did Alice say?" Jacob asks.

Closing his cell phone with shaking hands, Edward turns, and he can't even fake a smile. He stares past Jacob, focusing on the refrigerator. "She says I have to go downtown."

Jacob frowns at him. "Am I included in this?"

"She just wants me to check a place out. Look for information." The words escape from him too easy, and he bites his lip, struggling to swallow back the flow of lies. "I'll be back later. I have my phone with me."

Again there is the furrow between Jacob's eyebrows as he studies Edward, like he knows he's lying but can't pinpoint what he's lying about. "All right," he says slowly.

On impulse, Edward darts forward and kisses him on the cheek. "Love you," he mutters, and makes his escape from the condo before Jacob can react.

-

It's still raining.

Edward walks the streets aimlessly, hood up, the soles of his shoes squelching with water. Despite the rain, the sky is beautiful with light. Not very many other people are on the streets to appreciate it.

"Edward Cullen," someone says from behind him.

He barely manages to turn around. He catches a glimpse of red eyes, translucent pale skin. Something is pulled over his head. Before he can cry out or struggle, arms clamp around him and he is yanked backwards onto a ridged floor of what's probably a van. The door slams shut behind them.

"Fuck," Edward hisses, lashing out wildly. The vampire holding him hits him across the back of the head, so hard he feels his neck bones crack. Edward goes limp for a few precious seconds.

"Take off the hood," another person says by the time he recovers. "And for the love of God, don't be so rough with him."

Edward's captor merely grunts, but the hood is pulled off, and Edward finds himself kneeling on the floor of a van that is dank and cold with mud.

Fingers curl underneath his chin. He's forced to look up and meet the eyes of Aro, who is smiling down benevolently at him.

Red eyes. Like stop signs in the distance, following him through the night. His skin crawls.

"Edward Cullen," Aro says, light and friendly. "We need to talk."

-

There aren't any stars out tonight.

The night moves in increments of minutes, measured on the glowing green numbers of the microwave clock. Jacob's crashed on the couch, staring straight ahead. His eyelids keep sliding shut.

Edward has been missing for seven hours, ten minutes, and fuck knows how many seconds.

In those hours and so, Jacob has visualized every single way that Edward could have possibly died, and despite his exhaustion, the nagging sense of doom pushes his eyelids open again. Two more minutes on the clock have passed since he last looked at it.

"Where the fuck are you?" Jacob mumbles, words distorted against the sofa's cushions. Predictably, there is no response in the quiet, shadowed room.

It's only after he wakes up that he realizes he's even fallen asleep. Mild panic swamps him, like cold water, and for a second he tries to sit up. Cool hands press against his chest. The panic recedes.

"Edward?" Jacob tries to say, tongue thick with sleep.

He can see the solemn tilt of Edward's face hovering above him, hazy and distance, and makes the effort to touch his cheek. Edward grabs his hand.

"Go back to sleep," he says, voice quiet.

Jacob curls his fingers around Edward's hand, feeling the flicker of unease when he fails to feel a pulse, something he never gets used to. "Where were you?" he rasps. "I was worried. Tried to stay up."

"It's fine," Edward says. His eyelashes cast long, spiky shadows over his cheekbones, creating black hollows where his eyes should be. "I'll tell you in the morning."

Tugging on Edward's hand, Jacob tries again to sit upright, but Edward lets his arm go limp and collapses somewhere between Jacob and the couch, elbowing him in the ribs. Sleep is already pulling at Jacob. It make him tired enough to let Edward squirm around until he's comfortable.

After he finally settles into stillness, Jacob can feel Edward's fingers combing through his hair, but his eyes are closed and he's already falling back asleep, lulled by the feeling of another person beside him and the warmth from the nest of blankets. Edward's cheek brushes across his own.

"I'm sorry," Edward whispers.

_For what?_ Jacob thinks.

He tries to say it, but Edward keeps stroking his hair, quiet and complacent, and Jacob slips back into sleep without ever asking it out loud.

-

"_We want to make a deal with you."_

_-  
_

There's crime tape across the doorway to the apartments, an incongruously bright yellow fluttering in the downpour. Beside him, Jacob pulls his hood farther over his face, shaking off the rainwater.

"Are you going to ever talk to me again?" he asks.

Edward looks up at the window of the apartment. Someone, probably the police, had cleaned off the bloody initials, the misshapen heart around them, but the lines scraped into the glass remain.

Jacob sighs. "I'll take that as a no. Why are we even here?"

"You shouldn't be here," Edward says, tilting his head up to the raindrops.

"I heard you the first ten fucking times. You still haven't told me why not."

Edward glances over at him, reading the slow anger in Jacob's thoughts. "You should trust me," he replies.

With a snort, Jacob jerks his head up to the apartment, indicating the window. "Why should I? You _still_ haven't told me anything. Were you here last night?"

"No."

"Stop lying to me."

"I'm telling the truth," Edward says, stepping back to let a businesswoman march by. She barely gives them a second look. "I can't tell you where I was," he continues.

"And why not?"

Edward doesn't react to the anger in his voice, feeling too leaden to rise to the challenge. "You should go back to Forks," he says instead.

Jacob's reply is curt. "Fuck you."

"It's what best for you. For me. For all of us."

"Edward, what the hell is wrong with you?" Jacob demands, grabbing him by the shoulder and pulling him around. "A couple of days ago you were pretty fucking certain that we were going to make it, judging by how you were acting, and now you're ignoring me, except for when you tell me to go home because…because _what?_ What the fuck happened to you?"

Edward pries Jacob's fingers off his arm, still not meeting his eyes. He doesn't want to see it. "You shouldn't care."

Sighing, Jacob lets go of Edward, hand dropping to his side. "Like talking to a fucking brick wall, I swear," he mutters, propping himself against the Volvo.

The rain continues to fall around them, droplets sliding off the material of Jacob's jacket and onto the slick grey pavement. Edward sees a flash of movement in the apartment windows, and his throat constricts.

"Jacob. Please go," he says, as close to begging as he can get. "Just…leave. Don't look back, just go."

_He's scared,_ Jacob thinks, a current of unease threading through his thoughts. _He's scared, and I don't know why._

"No," he says aloud. "Look, I don't know who the hell you think I am that I would just leave you now, after all this shit we've been through."

Edward looks up at the window again, and sees a flash of red. His skin shrivels back in something akin to fear. "This isn't about you," he says, hating how weak he sounds. "You have to believe that. This is for you."

For a few long moments, all he can hear is the rain falling, the splash as a car drives through a puddle. When he finally looks up, Jacob has his gaze fixed on him.

Too late to stop it. Jacob's thoughts click together, pieces falling into place, in a dizzying rush that echoes through Edward's own mind like a seismic wave.

"It's her, isn't it?" Jacob says hoarsely.

And Edward can only look away, and that's enough to damn him.

"That's why we're here. Bella's here, isn't she?"

The sky is grey, and the low clouds drape themselves around the skyscrapers. The light is dull, too, like the sun rose the morning only to see the lack of color in the world below, and instead retreated behind the clouds, waiting for another, more promising day. The apartment window is transparent into darkness. As always, Edward is aware of Jacob, of the heat radiating from him even in the dreary cold weather.

_Why can't I have this one thing?_ Edward wonders. _Why can't I have him, damn the consequences, and be happy?_

"Bella's here," Jacob repeats, soft, like he can't believe it.

But Edward knows that he can't.

The three of them, Bella Jacob Edward, are still wound together, as hopelessly snarled as string, indistinguishable as radio static.

Jacob is studying him still, eyes nearly black, skin around them fracturing into tiny lines. "You're not going to kill her, are you," he says flatly.

Edward shakes his head, mute.

"I don't think you ever were going to, you know."

Like from a great height, looking down, Edward sees himself, small and hunched on the street against the partially broken-down Volvo. He keeps shaking his head. "I wanted to," he whispers, throat dry. "Believe me, I did."

"I do believe you," Jacob says ruefully, fingers alighting on the hollow spot below Edward's sternum, like he's waiting for the heartbeat to start again. "Come on. Let's just go. The Volturi can deal with her."

The name makes Edward stop.

"No," he says, a mirror of Jacob before.

Jacob's eyebrows contract, and a wrinkle forms between his brows. "No?"

The red eyes are still watching them, posed beside the window. Bella. After all these years. Truly until death did them part.

"I do love you," Edward says. It's so inadequate. "I'm sorry."

He steps away from Jacob, even as he wants to step forward and not look back, wants it with every fiber of his being. "I'm sorry for everything," he says again, voice breaking, and turns away.

If Jacob had said anything after that, it didn't matter; the world had narrowed down to the single pane of glass, Bella standing smiling behind it. Waiting for him to come to her.

And, unable to do anything but move forwards, he did.

-

* * *

Hey, you know how last chapter, I said this was probably the last chapter?

I WAS LYING. THERE'S ONE MORE. THIS IS NOT THE END.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, I have one more equally important thing to say: why are all you people suscribing to this story and not reviewing it? It makes me sad, like you're ashamed to be seen in public with this story. Also, this is your last chance to get your opinions in to me before it's over and done. Forever. I don't care if you have nothing to say, just send me a smiley face, it makes me nervous to have all of you just watching in silence. It's like you're waiting for me to fail. Plus, review count is what makes people click on the story, you guys know that. I will love you so much more if you make yourselves known to me.

For all of you who do review, thank you so much for reading and commenting, I love getting the comments. Thanks for sticking around! The ride's almost over...


	7. if the world should break in two

**chapter vii**

-

It's not raining. It should be, with the sky splayed open and waiting for the inclement weather to roll through. Clouds hang heavy over the city, and the storm drains gurgle with last night's downpour, piping it out to the nearby ocean, turbulent and cold. Everything about Seattle is grey and rainy. Jacob can barely remember the muggy heat of summer in the southern states with the windows open and the sun on his face, now that he's again trapped in the coastal autumn.

_It wasn't supposed to be like this_, he thinks, but he can't remember how it should have been. He lets the thought slip away.

Jacob is walking on a street in Seattle. He's not really sure how he got there, not past following a scent a few hours back, a while ago when the sky was still dark. It's been long enough that he's lost the trail, and is wandering aimlessly past rows of suburban houses, hands in his pockets and head down. By now, it's late enough that even the drunkest clubbers have staggered home and fallen asleep. Late enough that even the night is beginning to fade.

There are only so many roads for him to travel. There are only so many places to look in the city, trails to follow, before he reaches the end. There isn't much time left.

Somewhere near the horizon, the sun is rising, feeble light behind the murky clouds. The raindrops start to fall. He keeps walking.

-

It's strange, this sudden absence. It leaves Jacob off-balance at every turn. He looks over his shoulder, looking for Edward trying to hold onto a smile, and instead he ends up staring at the impersonal blank walls. He walks to the refrigerator and gazes at the blood packets and doesn't realize what he's doing, not until it's too late. He goes to sleep and, expecting to see Edward, he wakes up alone.

In the murky light of early morning, he makes his way home. He sits down, alone with a beer, and listens to the radio hosts banter with each other. There's no easy fill for the empty air, not even drinking, though it tastes about right. He takes a swig of the beer, looks over, and is again dully surprised not to see Edward. It's too easy to forget, some moments, and too easy to remember for the rest. Like he breathes, he misses Edward.

The urge to move is tugging on him. It's a strange feeling. Jacob wasn't the one who had wanderlust under his skin, bleeding out for the next horizon, looking for something that was already gone; not the way Edward had been, when he got that look in his eyes, chasing down the miles through the lights and the shadows.

His thoughts fade out into silence, with not a werewolf or a vampire or even a human to acknowledge them. He doesn't feel real anymore. There's nobody else there to confirm his existence, and there's no need for him, not here.

He breathes, and misses Edward.

-

The window of the apartment overlooks another street. Not the same one, street or apartment, but close enough to be an irrelevant difference. It's still raining.

He can hear her high heels clicking against the linoleum, the snick of cupboards being opened and closed carelessly, fake wood cracking under the abuse. "Nobody needs this much junk food," Bella says, laughter in her voice. "They must be hideously overweight."

She wobbles over to him on her stilettos, hands caressing the outsides of her thighs, like she's checking to make sure they haven't expanded. Needless worries. Nothing will ever change for her, now.

"If it makes them happy," Edward murmurs. He can see the cars below them, speeding by, and his mind is caught by the headlights. Everybody on the street was going somewhere, moving forward, living in a fixed time; he'd somehow slipped between the cracks. Stayed still, for all these muted years.

Her footsteps, soft on the carpet, come up behind him and her hands slide around him, settling around his shoulders. She rests her head on his back. "_You_ make me happy," she says, and he can feel her jaw moving against his spine.

Her body is the exact same temperature as his own, same temperature as the room. It's like they're not really there; just a daydream, released into the air.

"Why did you leave, Bella?" he asks, not moving. "Why did you run away after you were turned?"

For a moment her hands stiffen against his shoulders, but then she relaxes again, and presses herself closer to him. "Edward," she sighs. "Must we talk about this now?"

"I want to know."

She heaves another deep breath, unnecessary, and her breath is just dust in the room. "Very well," Bella says. "Do you mind if we take this somewhere else?"

They go to the master bedroom. It still smells like strangers, the couple who own the apartment, and there are photos of them hanging from the walls, clothes of theirs still on the floor. Edward sits on the bed, and Bella settles down next to him.

"Well. What do you want to know?" she asks, fidgeting with the hem of her miniskirt.

"Why'd you leave me?"

She makes a small, distressed sound. "It wasn't because of you!"

"Then why?" Edward asks, and he doesn't mean for his voice to crack like that.

"It's hard to explain, Edward. It wasn't you. A part of it was the blood, a bit, after the transformation," she begins awkwardly. "I mean, that was a big part of it, the blood, I really wanted it, but it wasn't just that."

"What was it, then?"

She pulls on her hair, avoiding his eyes, and finally confesses, "When I was turned…I expected to be more beautiful."

"But you were," Edward says.

She turns beseeching eyes on him. "Not as beautiful or Rosalie, or Alice, or any of them. It just wasn't good enough. Not for you." She smiles, touches his cheek with one slender finger. "You've always looked like an angel."

"You were…" Edward says again, trailing into silence.

Crimson eyes misted with memory, she either doesn't hear or doesn't listen, and drops her hand. "I thought being a vampire would fix things between us, make me more worthy of you. But it didn't. And I had to be, Edward, don't you see? I had to be perfect. You deserved it. You deserve the very best."

"Bella," he says, torn between longing and revulsion, because he did this, _he did this to her_, "Bella, no, it wasn't that, I loved you for yourself, as you were—"

Her mouth curves into a smile. "You loved me for my blood," she corrects.

Edward is stunned into silence.

"Or at least at first you did," she amends. "I'm not stupid. I knew, Edward. I always knew. But when we fell in love, I wanted to be someone you could look at, someone you could be proud of. I knew that I would have to be better to be with you."

"I didn't love you for your blood," he says, feeling sick.

"You don't now," she replies, and picks up his hand, placing it on her chest, right above where her heart had once kept her alive. "I'm not good enough yet, but I'll keep trying. I swear."

"Why did you kill those girls, Bella?" he whispers, voice cracking, and he sees the bloody sockets of the dead girl's eyes, staring at him, implicating him.

"It made me beautiful," she says, and smiles.

Like headlights in the dark, he can see her eyelashes flutter, calculating, but he doesn't move. Not when she kisses him, too hard and too desperate, hands coming up to bracket his face, because he doesn't know how to say no to her.

He wants to say no. He wants so many things, and none of them are this. All he does, though, is close his eyes.

-

Jacob loses track of the days, lets them slip away from him in a blur of sunrises and sunsets during rain storms. The world moves on without him there to witness.

Despite that, Alice finds him. Somewhere on the highway during yet another bout of rain at some ungodly hour of the night, she pulls up in front of him. She's driving a blue Porsche with bright red brake lights.

"Jacob," she says, throwing open the door of the car. "You look terrible."

He stops walking to stare at her. Her black hair is wet and plastered on her forehead, and she almost looks human, human enough that at first he can't place her face.

"Get in the car," she says.

"Alice?" he manages to say.

She rolls her eyes, expression turning into a scowl, and replies, "And Edward told me you were smart. Yes. Now, into the car, and try not to get the seats wet."

Numbly, Jacob shuffles around to the other side of the car and gets in, dripping wet, only to find Alice has laid towels over the passenger seat. There's more leg room than in the Volvo, but the interior smells too new, like the leather was freshly dyed and the metal was just welded. There's GPS navigation on the dashboard instead of a radio.

Alice revs the engine and the car screeches forwards, the rain lunging towards the windshield. The Porsche is much faster than the Volvo.

"What are you doing here?" Jacob asks.

She keeps her eyes on the road, swerving past a slow-moving truck. "I'm here to help you find Edward," she says.

"He doesn't want to be found."

"That's only what he thinks," she says dismissively. "And despite what he did to her, that bitch broke Edward's heart, and I'll be damned if he goes back to her like a whipped dog."

Jacob glances over at her, surprised at her language, and for the first time in days he feels more than partially awake. "Did you know this was going to happen?"

She raises one hand and scrubs at the short hair at the back of her neck, frowning into the rearview mirror. "No."

"Thought you could see the future."

"I'm not omnipotent," she says.

Jacob musters up the energy to glare at her, but like Edward, she simply ignores it. "What did you see, then?" he snaps.

On the outside, Alice seems calm, face completely serene, but her fingers tightening around the steering wheel gives her tension away. "Look, Jacob, I don't really care what you think of me, but believe me, I would rather die than watch this happen, _again,_ and do nothing about it," she says, pressing her foot on the accelerator. The car jumps forward. "Right now there are so many different outcomes that I can't just narrow one down and call it destiny. So you can just shut up."

The car speeds on, in complete silence.

"I'm here to help you, by the way," Alice adds after a minute.

Jacob sighs. "Well, you're doing a great fucking job."

-

Strangely, the condo is exactly as Jacob left it three days ago. He's forgotten about places staying constant, not flickering and evaporating while he looks away, lost in the heat mirages in the rearview mirror.

Alice doesn't even bother flicking on the lights, just says, "Go have a shower."

"Why do you care?" Jacob says, not even looking up. He's too tired to have a proper rebellion against her, and as far as defiance went, it's a piss-poor effort.

"Because I have to live with your stench. You've been walking around the city for three days straight. You smell. Go clean yourself."

Her tone allows no argument, so Jacob obediently trudges off to the shower.

The bathroom is cramped, with the door hitting the toilet on the way in, and Jacob nearly knocks the upright sink over on his way to the shower. He pulls off his clothes. Alice is right, he is starting to smell, and he can't remember the last time he changed his clothes.

The porcelain shower is turning yellow with age, but the water is hot, steam condensing on the walls and ceiling, swirling around Jacob's feet. He can feel his shoulders relax.

He feels wasted. Like in the hazy time before he'd wolfed out, when he was fourteen and got so drunk at a party he was still feeling it the next day. He was smashed out of his mind, but he found it again later. Right now, he just feels tired and broken, unable to think clearly, like he's stumbling through life with fingers outstretched, grasping for something to hold onto.

Edward is still gone.

The shower wall is cool against his forehead, beaded with droplets, and his eyes are hot and prickling. He closes them. He lets the water beat down on his back, and tries not to think anymore.

-

Bella curls up in Edward's arms, head tucked in his chin.

"I love you," she says softly.

Edward doesn't reply. Through the window, he can see the sun rising, pale and uncertain against the line of dark buildings.

"I love you too."

-

Alice is flipping through the pile of newspapers, and doesn't look up as Jacob shuffles downstairs the next morning.

"Feeling better now?" she inquires, circling an article in red pen.

He pulls open the fridge and finds the remains of several take-out meals, which haven't started to go bad yet, and he keeps forgetting it's only been a few days. "No," he says, kicking the fridge shut. "I feel much cleaner, though."

Alice shakes her head. "We need a plan," she says.

"When has it ever been a 'we'?" Jacob snaps, sitting down on the table and sticking of fork into his leftover fried chicken. "Where's the rest of your family, anyways? Don't they want to help?"

"Well, you're back to your charming self, at least," she says.

"Answer the question."

"Of course they would want to help. The thing is, they don't know about it." She flashes him a smile, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "This is the best for everyone involved. Trust me."

The fried chicken tastes soggy. Jacob chews it anyways, watching Alice move onto a new paper and run her finger down the page, frowning. "I thought you didn't like me," he says.

Still she doesn't look up. "I'm indifferent to you, if that makes you feel better, but we need to work together if we're going to find Edward and Bella, because otherwise it'll never work."

"Maybe I don't want him back."

"Don't be stupid," she says. "You're in love with him."

"Well, maybe I'm not anymore."

"Really," she says, raising her eyebrows. "That's why you've just spent a few days wandering the streets looking for him like a lost puppy?" Jacob stayed silent. "Face it, you need my help."

"No. I don't."

"You know you do. You haven't had any luck on your own."

Jacob switches tactics, hoping to take her off-guard. "Why would you even come to me? Why don't you just use your freaky mojo to find him?"

"Doesn't work that way."

"Then you're not going to be able to help me, are you?"

Her fingers, pale and white against the grey newspaper, twitch, but she just turns another page and begins perusing it. "You're the stupidest person alive if you think 'mojo' is all I can do."

"Fuck you," Jacob retorts, sagging in his seat and pushing the chicken drumstick away. He's not hungry anymore.

She doesn't even bat an eyelash. "Very mature, Jacob."

There are dust motes landing on the table. Jacob watches them drift by, stirred by unseen currents. His human-skin feels too tight, fraying across his muscles, cracking with every tiny motion.

Alice is still waiting for his answer. Her eyes aren't moving, fixed on the paper, and she's unnaturally still, even for a vampire.

"How do I know I can trust you?" he asks.

She takes her time answering. "We both love Edward," she says. "I wouldn't do anything to betray that. Even if you can't bring yourself to believe anything else, believe in that."

After that, silence. The rain is loud, gurgling through the gutters and battering against the windows. Jacob mulls it over.

Finally, he asks, "How are we going to find him?"

"Not on an empty stomach," she says, snapping back into motion, closing the red-marked paper. "Come on, we'll get breakfast. My treat."

Jacob doesn't understand how her mind works.

They end up driving the Porsche to a cheap diner filled with minivans and trucks, lured off the highway by the promise of cheap food. It's falsely cheerful place, with red vinyl seats and bad murals on the wall and the windows, and the waitress looks hungover, but it all seems basically harmless. Alice orders a huge breakfast for Jacob.

"Your body must produce a lot of insulin," she says, watching with clinical interest as he jams a whole pancake into his mouth and tries to chew it. A cup of coffee steams away, untouched, in front of her hands.

Jacob cocks his head in question.

"If you normally eat that much, you must have more than the normal amount of insulin on your blood," she says. "Carlisle would be able to explain it better. He'd like to see how werewolves work."

Jacob gives up on chewing and just swallows the pancake. "Why, so he can figure out how to kill us?"

Her eyes glint, and she taps her nails on the chipped table. "Hardly. Carlisle is a doctor, not a murderer, and aside from Emmett, he's the only one in the family who likes you."

"Emmett?" Jacob asks, taken aback. "Why does he like me?"

"He thinks it's cool that you're a werewolf."

"Oh."

"He also said that he thinks you'd probably appreciate sports and video games more than Jasper and Edward. Emmett really wants someone to go to the hockey playoffs with him."

"Huh," Jacob says.

This time, Alice's smile does reach her eyes, crinkling her skin. "That's what I said," she tells him, adding a packet of sugar to her coffee with calm precision. Not even a granule of sugar falls on the table.

After she doesn't say anything else, Jacob turns his attention back to his meal, and by the time he sits back and stretches out, he's feeling almost full. Alice is looking out the window at the pale wash of dawn, eyes fixed somewhere over the cars rushing down the road.

"Are you done?" she asks. "Good. We need to start searching."

Not bothering to reply, he watches as she pulls a twenty out of her purse and put it on the table, next to the coffee, and stands up. She pauses to look back at him.

"Coming?" she asks.

"Yeah. Yeah, for sure," he replies, a beat too late, and gets up to follow her out the door.

She's definitely not Edward, but the little details, sometimes, are exactly the same. It keeps catching him unawares.

_You fucking freak, he's gone. You haven't found him yet, and you're not going to find him now. He's probably gone to Canada. Or Mexico. Fuck, maybe even Europe by now._

_Stupid bastard._

_I don't miss him._

If Jacob just left now, went back to La Push, he knows the pack would take him back, given enough time. All he had to do was leave.

Alice, hand on the door handle of the Porsche, glances up as he slouches over to the car. "All right?" she asks.

"I could just leave," he says.

She gives him a look and opens the door. "You're not going to, though."

"No," he says, sliding into the car. "I'm just saying. It's a possibility."

"An unlikely one," she retorts, sliding into the driver's seat and staring the engine.

"Why didn't you tell your family that you came here?" he asks.

She turns out of the parking lot without the familiar click of the turn signals, a move that makes even Edward look like a safe driver. "I like doing things on my own," she replies, accelerating. "Other people confuse things."

"What about Jasper? I thought you two were, y'know…" Jacob wraps his fingers together and holds them up to demonstrate. "Married?"

Her mouth thins. "Marriage doesn't mean we have to do everything together."

"Oh, c'mon, you two are happily married in undead bliss or whatever. Don't give me that crap."

Alice heaves a sigh and taps her fingers against the steering wheel, flashing the gold of her wedding band. "I love Jasper, but…Edward's my brother, and we look out for each other. We always have."

Jacob absorbs that, and then says, "Why are you being so honest? I thought you didn't like me."

"I don't," she says, "But I'd like your help, and I know you're sizing me up, so lying seemed like a bad idea. And you've been good to Edward. It's the least I can do to answer your questions, however stupid."

"Well," Jacob says, and can't think of anything else to say. He settles with, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she says imperturbably, and runs a red light.

-

Alice's plan for finding Edward is basically the same as Jacob's plan for finding Edward, which boils down to walking around until they found him.

"Okay, so _why_ can't you foresee the future and find him?" Jacob asks her as they walk down the block, facing the accusing stares of the people in cars. He hits the crosswalk button. "I'm not trying to bitch about this, but—seriously. Why not?

Alice looks tired in the way that vampires look tired, all marble skin and sad, inhuman eyes. "I told you, it doesn't work that way."

"Why not?"

The crosswalk light changes, counting down, and they cross the street. "Fine," she huffs. "I'll try to use short words, so you can understand."

"Nice, Alice, really kind of you."

"The future has many different possibilities. It isn't set. Usually, I can see the most likely outcomes, because they're the clearest of all the visions, but right now about all the possibilities have an equal chance of coming true."

"Why'd you even come here, then?"

"We've been over this before, Jacob," she says, sighing. "I came here because it narrowed the possibilities down. They keep changing, every second, but they're still hard to see. It's a mostly useless power, really, because as much as it does help sometimes, a lot of the time my visions don't come true."

"Really?" he asks.

"Comic books don't get things right, Jacob."

His reply is automatic; "Fuck you," he says, but then adds, "What do you see, then?"

"I see Edward dying. I see everyone dying, a lot of the time. So far those visions haven't come true." She looks down, shoulders curling inwards. "I hope they stay that way."

At loss for what else to say, Jacob replies, "That sucks."

She snorts. "Yes, it does."

They keep walking.

He misses home. Like a hole in the chest, he misses the pack, even though he wished he'd never been part of it, wishes that things had stayed simple and that the vampires had never come to Forks, mixing them all up in something mythical and too big for them all. He misses his family.

"Jacob?" Alice is saying.

He wrenches his thoughts back to the present. "Sorry?"

"I was asking if you've already checked the apartment."

"First thing I did. There was nothing there."

She looks sideways at him, only a little bit suspicious. "Why didn't you try to stop him from leaving?"

The question that has plagued him. "It's stupid," Jacob says. "It's not a good reason at all."

"Try me," Alice suggests.

He bites his lip, trying to find a way to put it. "I didn't think I could stop him," he says, at length. "And I didn't want to know. I think I wouldn't have been able to make him stop. So I didn't try."

Her lips turn down, but she shrugs, and doesn't press for more details. "So, nothing in the apartment. Did you find anything else?"

"No. I couldn't find them. I still have the Volvo and all the credit cards and things, so I'm assuming they didn't go anywhere."

Mid-step, Alice stops, and sighs, running her hands through her hair and making it stick up. "I guess we do have to use my visions, then," she says, frown deepening. "It's already been too many days."

Jacob just nods. The whole thing is spinning out of his hands—it has been for a while. For now, he can only follow blindly, hoping they end up in the right place.

-

They go onwards.

-

"I love you," Bella whispers, looking up with a smile, hands supporting a dead man's head. His neck is broken. Edward can smell the blood dripping from his slack mouth, welling up in the scrapes on his knuckles where he'd tried to fight back.

_It's not long now,_ he tells himself. It all feels so foggy, though, and he can barely remember the time between losing Bella and finding her again. Only she's different now. She's really fucking different.

She lowers her head to bite the man's neck. His skin tears away, and Edward looks back to the street, hoping against hope that he'll see Jacob driving down it.

_Not long now._

-

Jacob and Alice are sitting in an internet café, combing through the news sites in an effort to find any recent stories that could be about vampires. The lights overhead give everything a slightly unreal look, disconnected from reality, and all Jacob can see on the screens is that the stock market is crashing over and over again.

"I knew this would happen," Alice mutters beside him. "Stupid Edward, he's kept me from the market. Looks like most of my funds are wiped out."

"Big deal. Sell one of the cars." Jacob doesn't have any sympathy for her plight; he's wondering how the people back at La Push are doing. Those without several million's dollars of unused machinery in their garages to fall back on.

He's about to log onto his long-neglected email account when Alice hisses. "Shit," she says, in a gasp.

"What?" he asks. The hairs on the back of his neck prickle—he's never heard her sound like that before, like she doesn't have enough air to force out the words. She sounds scared.

"Don't look around, and don't panic," she says quietly. That only freaks him out more. "The Volturi found us."

It feels like something's walked over his grave. "Shit," he echoes. "How screwed are we?"

"Depends on how polite we are to them."

"Fuck." Jacob stares at the screen in front of him, distantly recognizing it as his email inbox. There's a whole bunch of them that he hasn't read yet, and probably never will. "Can't we escape out the back?"

Alice screws up her face, focusing, and a spasm of pain shakes her. She opens her eyes. "No good. We'll get killed. They've got the place surrounded."

"_Fuck. _How did they find us?"

"I don't know!" Alice said, before regaining her composure, smoothing out the creases in her face, and repeated, "I don't know."

The whole situation is giving Jacob vertigo. "What the hell do we do now?"

"The only thing we can do," Alice says, the ghost of a smile crossing her face. "We go see what they want."

Jacob stares at her. "That's a terrible plan."

She shrugs and gets up, pushing in her chair. "What can I say? I've always wanted a stand-off. Come on."

-

The sun is setting in blaze of golden light, but it's early enough that the glow is making Alice's skin sparkle. The two of them move into the elongated shadows of the alleys and wait. Jacob kind of feels like he should be smoking. Murdering someone. Just standing in the deserted alley, waiting for something to happen, feels odd.

"Whatever they do, don't offer any resistance at all," Alice mutters to him. "They'll use that as an excuse to kill you. Let me do the talking."

Jacob elbows her, but the height difference is enough that it hits in her in the shoulder. "So your powers are useful for something after all, aren't they?" he says, offering her a smile.

She returns it slightly grimly, brushing her hair back from her forehead. "Try not to get killed."

The air is crisp, growing cooler. They wait.

In a minute, a vampire shows up. He's dressed in a suit, with tie that's probably made of Italian silk or something expensive, and is wearing a smirk like it's just another part of the outfit. "You must be the werewolf and the sister," he says to them.

Alice meets his gaze calmly, hands in her pockets and chin in the air. "You must be Volturi," she retorts. "Why have you got us surrounded?"

"I'm sorry, my dear, but I can't tell you that." His gaze shifts over to Jacob, considering him, but he looks back to Alice to answer. "You're pawns in a deal, so to speak. Our intentions are not to cause you harm—unless we feel you're threatening us."

Jacob bristles, but Alice puts a hand on his arm, clamping down with hard fingers and shooting him a look. "Are you going to take us somewhere?" she asks the vampire.

He just smiles and says, "Only for a while."

"I don't suppose we have any choice," she says, still in the same level voice, but Jacob can see her eyelids twitch, and her fingers go tighter around his arms.

"You don't," the vampire agrees, adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves. "Come with me. And please, for your own sakes, don't try anything."

Alice and Jacob exchange a look. He tilts his head towards the vampire, eyebrows raised in question; she frowns and shakes her head, and tugs on his arm a little, pulling him forwards. They all walk out of the alley. It's probably the last dingy back alley Jacob is ever going to see; he mourns the loss as he steps into the sunlight, trying to shield Alice.

The vampire watches them. When Jacob meets his gaze, he utters a short laugh and opens the door of a waiting white car, indicating the backseat with a careless gesture. "Honestly, when they told me you were fucking the brother…" The vampire shrugs. "I didn't believe them, but maybe you're just working your way through the whole family."

His grin is full of sharp teeth and malice. Jacob can feel the wolf clawing through his skin, seething with rage, and braces himself for the shape-shift.

Alice yanks on his arm again. "Don't do anything stupid," she growls, jaw clenched, and pushes him into the car's backseat. She slides in after him, and the vampire closes the door.

Jacob drops his head, feeling caged. The car has no leg space.

"We're fucked," he says.

She sighs, and releases his arm, only to pat it consolingly. "Pretty much, yes."

A panel separates the back from the front, and Jacob can't see anything through it, or the darkened windows; all he can do is feel the vibrations and see the faint shapes of trees blurring by the windows as the car begins the drive to nowhere.

Alice takes his hand and grips it, hard. "It's going to be okay," she says.

Despite what he's trying to tell himself, Jacob is really, really scared. He squeezes her hand back anyways, trying to infuse it with warmth, and misses Edward's skin for a painful moment.

"We're going to be fine," he says. It feels like a prayer.

-

The car drives for a long, long time. Jacob measures out the minutes in his own heartbeats, feels them pulsing against Alice's lifeless skin. She looks washed-out in the dim light, eyes downcast.

"Got any aces up the sleeve?" Jacob asks quietly.

That makes her roll her eyes, but also breaks the unnatural stillness of her face. "Maybe," she says. "I'm looking right now. It's gotten even murkier."

The car lurches to a stop. Jacob finds himself oddly reluctant to let go of her hand, to lose that bit of contact; but he does, and braces his legs against the back of the seats.

Someone opens the door. Jacob glares, and the same vampire as before just smiles, teeth small and sharp like fish scales. "We've arrived," he says.

Jacob gets out first, blinking at the sudden artificial light. They're in an abandoned warehouse, completely empty but for a few stacked cardboard boxes and faint, dusty imprints on the floor, probably where things had once been stocked.

"Why are we here?" Alice asks. There's only the faintest of tremors in her voice.

All in all, there are six vampires there with them. The first one looks over Jacob's head and nods, and before he can even react, Jacob feels his arms being wrenched up behind his back. He goes rigid, but the person holding him jerks his arms up further anyways, and he growls.

The first vampire saunters up to him, still grinning, and pulls off his sunglasses. His eyes are blood red. "I hear that you're responsible for Felix's death, Jacob Black."

"Go to hell," Jacob snarls.

A smirk. "You're just lucky Jane isn't here, or this would be truly painful. Without her, we have to do this the old-fashioned way."

He steps back. Jacob can see the punch coming from a mile away, but there's nothing he can do to stop it, despite his efforts to pull away. The vampire's fist slams into his jaw with a crack.

Jacob's vision goes red, and his head lolls to the side. The vampires are laughing. Somewhere in the distance, he can hear Alice yelling at them to stop.

Jacob straightens up, painfully, and looks the vampire in the eye. "That all you got, bitch?"

The vampire is holding his own wrist, looking thoughtful, but his eyes darken. "Not even close," he says, and punches Jacob again, harder than before. Jacob head snaps to the side, and the vampire gets closer, fingers digging into his chin, eyes narrowed."I'm going to cut you into tiny pieces before you'll even consider dying."

Jacob spits out blood. "Taking Felix's death a little bit personally, aren't you? Were you fucking him? Or was he fucking you?"

That earns him two more punches, and a knee to the gut that has him doubling over, wheezing. "He was like a brother to me," the vampire says, low and deadly, and after that, Jacob's world is reduced to a red haze, punctuated by sharp bursts of pain. It's all he can do to hold on.

Sometime after he feels most of his ribs splinter, Jacob mercifully blacks out, to the sound of Alice raging against the vampires in the background.

-

Edward makes his move just after sunset, when the night is only beginning to leech the warmth out of the day. The covers of the bed are wrinkled, but Bella is in the kitchen, singing along to the radio in a voice Edward can barely recognize.

"Edward," she says, looking up and beaming. "What do you want to do now?"

"We're going hunting," he replies, throat raw.

Her eyes light up. "Who?" she asks, already turning off the radio, stilettos skittering against the floor.

"Some old friends. You'll see," Edward says. He takes her hand in his. "Come on, we need to get going."

For a fraction of a second, she resists, eyes sharpening slightly, but then allows herself to be towed after him. "Who?" she asks again.

"It's a surprise," Edward says. "You'll see."

-

Jacob wakes up later. There's no longer any sunlight filling the cracks in the warehouse walls, and when he moves, the broken bones seem to have healed at least a little bit.

He and Alice are both chained to support poles, hands behind their backs, and there are still Volturi standing nearby. One gives them a half-glance and then looks away again.

"Jacob?" Alice says. Her voice sounds rougher than usual.

"Alice?"

She exhales and goes limp against her pole. "I thought they'd killed you."

"Takes more than a pussy-ass beating to kill me," Jacob replies, although it does hurt if he breathes in too deeply. He stops trying to breathe. "How long have we been here for?"

"A few hours."

"What the fuck," he says, too tired to add any emotion to his voice, and rests his head against the pole. "Are you okay?"

She shrugs. "I'm fine. They slapped me a bit when I tried to get them to stop hitting you after you were knocked out, but other then that I'm fine."

"Guess we pissed them off."

He can only see her from the corner of his eye, but she looks even smaller than usual with her hands tied behind her, hunched over her knees and hair falling into her eyes. He barely even knows her, doesn't fully trust her, but she's all that he's got right now.

The manacles knock against the floor when he shifts, trying to get more comfortable on the floor. "Why haven't they killed us yet?" he asks.

"I asked them," Alice says. "Then I looked. All I got is that they're waiting for someone."

"Who?"

She closes her eyes for a bit longer than a standard blink. When she opens them, the pain is close to the surface, strong enough to make looking into her eyes like looking into the sun.

"Edward," she says. "They're waiting for Edward."

_-_

Edward knows Jacob's scent. From miles away, he can track it, chase it down; he's caught it before, two nights ago, maybe more. Bella hovers beside him, anxious. She hasn't realized yet.

"Where are we going?" she asks again.

He pulls on her hand, maneuvering them through the shadows, avoiding the tired eyes of people stumbling down the streets. "Hunting."

She stops dead, feet planted in their flimsy stilettos, a snarl curling her voice. "Edward. Tell me where we're going." Seeing his surprised look, she relents, and says in a softer tone, "Please?"

He grinds his teeth, feeling the phantom bile rising his throat—though it's been years since he's tasted the acid of it, choking him—but manages a sickly smile.

"The Volturi are here," he finally says. "I thought we'd pay them a visit."

Bella's eyes widen. "Are you…are you sure?" she says, eyebrows knitting.

"Bella," he says, clasping her hand and pressing his lips to it, looking deep into her eyes. "They tried to break us apart. They wanted to kill us both. It's time we had revenge."

The streetlights cast shadows across her face, making the creases between her eyebrows look deeper, and in the space of a second, she looks human again, fretful and concerned. It passes, and her skin again sparkles slightly in the orange glow. She smiles at Edward.

"Of course, darling," she says. "How far away are they?"

"About a mile," he replies, lightheaded with relief.

"I'll race you," she challenges, laughing, and Edward feels almost physically ill.

_You did this_, he reminds himself, running after her, trying to keep his feelings under control. The buildings and faces of strangers blur. _You made her like this._

Jacob's scent grows stronger, laced with fear and pain, and Edward slows down. They're in the warehouse district, and the pavement is rough and cracked, surrounded by a tall chain link fence, topped with barbed wire. He can see two white cars ahead, and it smells like vampires and foreign skin.

Bella is closer to the warehouse than he is, looking worried again.

"Is Jacob…?" she begins.

He shakes his head, feels the lie scratching against his teeth. "I don't know."

The frequency of Jacob's mind is familiar, comforting, and he reaches out mentally for it, hearing Jacob's voice in his head again.

_I'm going to kill that one first, that fucking bastard, he is going to cry like a little bitch when I'm through with him, then that one, because he never stops talking on his cell phone, and then…_

It feels like something had been missing in Edward's chest, and was suddenly replaced, leaving him whole for the first time in days.

"You didn't know?" Bella says, mouth pursed, and he looks at her one last time.

It's not the girl he loved anymore, though. The person who stands before him is a strange woman, skin pale with vampirism, eyes reddened and dilated, but the most striking change is what lies behind them. She's not Bella anymore.

_Goodbye_, Edward thinks. "I love you, Bella," he says, a farewell, the only one he's going to get.

She tilts her head, studying him. "I love you too," she replies.

"This is the warehouse," he says, looking towards the looming building in the darkness. "This is it."

Bella jumps first, leaping over the fence and wire on top of it, and he follows her, hitting the ground silent as a cat. The air is cold and damp on his face. He pauses on the way to the warehouse, crouching near the vans, and slashes the tires with his hands.

Already at the doors, Bella looks back. "How sneaky do we have to be?" she asks.

He reaches past her and turns the doorknob, unlocked, and pushes the creaking door open.

"We can go right in," he says, staring into the darkness of the warehouse. "They're expecting us."

Even if she herself doesn't realize it, subconsciously, Bella knows that something's wrong. "Edward," she begins, not moving, "I don't…"

"Do you trust me?" he interrupts, hating himself, but he can still hear Jacob's thoughts in his mind, hears Alice's, and there's no other way.

She doesn't even blink. "Of course."

"Then walk in there."

She still looks doubtful.

"I swear that everything will be all right," Edward says.

She looks back at him, eyes searching his face, but he meets her gaze and doesn't look away, keeps his hands braced against the doorframe.

Finally, she sighs, and walks through the door.

Edward offers a brief prayer, dead in the air and addressed to nobody, and follows her inside.

It's dark in the belly of the warehouse. Edward can barely make out the two figures, shackled to the poles and facing away from him, but once he sees them his heart leaps; they're Jacob and Alice, and both of them seem to be alive.

There are six other vampires there, and they all turn to watch Bella and Edward enter. "Cullen," one says. "You're late."

Edward can see Jacob jerk in surprise, but Alice doesn't move. Edward tries not to look at either of them, and instead looks at the vampire, who has crimson-colored eyes and an unpleasant smirk.

"It doesn't matter," Edward says.

Beside him, losing some of her momentum, Bella whispers, "Edward, what's going on?"

"Did you not tell her?" the vampire sneers. "Did you not tell _any_ of them that they're bartering chips in your little game?"

Edward lifts his chin. "I kept my end of the deal," he retorts. "Let them go."

"Of course," the vampire says. "But first…"

The vampire walks closer, footsteps echoing against the cavernous walls of the warehouse. The other vampires all shift behind him, covering the exits, and for a moment Edward almost panics, but he manages to stand still when the other vampire circles around them. Bella flinches and grabs Edward's arm, staring over her shoulder with wide eyes.

"What going on?" she demands.

The other vampire merely smiles.

Edward pries her hand off his arm, not looking at her, and lets it fall. Her eyes are huge, shocked, and she presses both hands against her mouth, imploringly. "Edward," she whispers.

"I'm sorry," he says numbly.

"Come here, Bella," the other vampire says, grabbing her.

She tries to get away, moving faster and more vicious than she would've ever been capable of before, but it's not enough. Another vampire steps forward and together they manage to drag her over to the rest of the group, though she struggles wildly, screaming.

Edward looks away.

He can hear it, though, even as he looks blindly ahead at the steel rivets on the walls; he can hear one of the vampires crack their knuckles under the increasing hysteria of Bella's shrieking. He hears her scream his name, one last time.

Then there is a sickening ripping noise, and silence.

-

It feels like an eternity before the vampire strolls back over. His face is black with blood in the darkness, but his eyes gleam, and he holds a burned-out match in his hand. It leaves black streaks on his palm. Edward can see the glow of the fire through the cracks in the warehouse walls. He can smell the burned vampire flesh, like a shell of a person, finally laid to rest.

"We're finished," he says. "Now it's your turn. And please try to run. It'll make it more fun."

Edward's hands are trembling, so he puts them in his jacket, feeling them heavy against his stomach. "Until dawn," he says. "Give me until dawn."

The vampire studies his face, flickering from his eyes to his jaw, a smirk curving the edge of his bloodied mouth. "Why should I?" he asks. "I have no guarantee that you'll return."

"You have my word."

The vampire laughs in his face. "And what's that worth?" he says. "You killed that girl without a second thought. You said you loved her, you cold, sick bastard."

When Edward remains silent, the vampire shrugs and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, looking at the smear of blood with detached interest. "I can understand the need to get in one last fuck. You have until dawn."

Edward nods, throat working, and steps past him, heading over to where Alice and Jacob are slowly, stiffly standing up, faces cast into high relief by the flames of Bella's corpse.

"Alice…" he says.

She gives him a look, holding her wrists, and walks by without a word.

Edward stares after her, stomach twisting, and feels a large, warm hand land on his shoulder. "Is Bella dead?" Jacob asks. His face is purple with bruises, and he's moving stiffly.

Edward can only nod.

Jacob is quiet, and Edward can't look at him, can't look at anywhere but the dirty cement floor and relive the moment he heard her die, over and over again in his head.

"Good," Jacob says, and his arms come around Edward. Edward hugs him back, almost reflexively, and can feel him trembling. "That means it's over."

"It's not over yet," Edward mutters, quiet enough that only he himself hears it. Then, he says, louder: "Let's go."

The six vampires watch them go, like sharks, and Edward begins to unwillingly count down the hours.

-

And so they go on.

-

"You're leaving, aren't you?" Alice says quietly.

They're standing in the parking lot of the condo, next to the two cars. The sky is dark above them, with only a few visible stars, and lit with the orange glow of the city. Edward can hear pebbles crunching when he shifts his weight from foot to foot. The air smells like rain and wind, clean and fresh.

"I have to," Edward says.

Alice's eyes are achingly sad. "I know," she says simply, lacing her fingers with Edward's like it was enough to keep him there. Maybe it would have been enough, once. "You always had to be so goddamn self-sacrificing."

Edward squeezes her hand, and then gently detangles their fingers. "I did what I had to," he says, and kisses her on the forehead, not allowing himself to linger. "I love you," he says, stepping back.

"I love you too," Alice says, voice wavering. "Don't do it. Don't go. You've got us, you've got Jacob, now, too, you don't have to go. We'll find a way to save you."

"I'm sorry," Edward says, and takes a step back.

Alice huddles in on herself, hair ruffling in the breeze; she has never seemed more impossibly destroyable to Edward, like a chalk drawing in the rain. Edward aches for her.

"Tell the others that I love them," he says. "I'm sorry, Alice, I'm so sorry, but this was the only way."

She doesn't reply. Her eyes are unmercifully dry, but Edward knows her, and he knows what he's done to her. She swallows, hard, and looks in the other direction.

He turns around and walks away.

-

The interior of the condo is silent and still. The shadows on the walls look surreal, almost, and Edward walks past them without any noise, stepping up the staircase and onto the landing. He pauses in front of the master bedroom's door, trying to salvage anything that was left of his courage.

Four hours left.

"I'm awake, you don't have to hover," Jacob says, lying on the bed and staring up at the ceiling. He turns his attention over to Edward. "What's up?"

Edward laughs, a dry, choking sound. "I don't know," he says, sitting down on the mattress.

Jacob sits up, waiting.

Edward is overly aware of Jacob's presence, and fists his hands on the bed's cover, trying to erase the memories he has, of Jacob and Bella both. "I owe you an explanation," he says.

"You do," Jacob says calmly. He doesn't press the issue. Being beaten nearly to death seems to have mellowed his temper, for the time being at least.

The blankets are warm, probably from Jacob's heat. Edward rubs his hand against the cover, trying to capture it, but his hands only fray the fabric. "I made a deal," Edward says. It doesn't even feel like he's talking, and his voice, hoarse and broken, doesn't sound like his at all. "With the Volturi, they contacted me, told me not to tell you. So I didn't. They came for me. They said I could help them, help them find Bella, and I told them I wouldn't, but then they said they would kill you and my family. All of them."

"And then you left. You agreed?" Jacob says, reaching out to touch the back of Edward's neck. His fingers are hot.

"Of course I did. That's why I left you. I'm sorry I did that to you, but I had to find her."

"I understand," Jacob says, soothingly, rubbing his palm in circles across Edward's back.

It's too much. Edward curls up, head touching his knees and shaking, and Jacob reaches out and pulls him into a hug. "I'm sorry," Edward mutters. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

"Stop it. Edward listen to me," Jacob begins, but Edward buries his face in his shoulder and breathes in shakily.

"I'm a monster, Jacob."

"You're not," he replies immediately. "You did what you had to do. I would've killed her. She murdered all those girls in cold blood, remember? She would've killed more. It was necessary."

"Necessary," Edward chokes out, hands tightening on Jacob's back. "It wasn't fucking necessary."

Jacob just holds him a little bit more closely, rocking back and forth and making meaningless, quiet noises, stroking Edward's hair. "It's going to be okay," he says. "It'll be okay."

"All these years, I tried to be human," Edward says. "I tried not to kill anybody. And look at where that got me."

Jacob kisses his forehead. "It'll be okay," he says.

They're too short of adrenaline, too tired and bruised and broken to have sex, but they curl up next to each other anyways. Edward spends his last three hours with Jacob, watching him sleep, memorizing his face, feeling the leaden heart in his chest ache.

He waits until he's sure Jacob is asleep. Then, he shifts over and kisses him softly, one last time.

"I love you," he whispers.

He gets up after that, goes away and leaves, and only looks back once.

-

_"If you don't agree to help us, Edward, we'll have to force you to," Aro says, still smiling._

_Edward raises his eyebrows, trying to look unruffled. "How are you going to do that?"_

_"There are people you care about," Aro says, watching intently, looking for a reaction. "Your family. Nice little Alice. Your 'father'."_

_As much as he tries to hide it, Edward flinches, and the smile on Aro's face widens. "We'll kill them, nice and slow, if you don't make this deal."_

_Edward stares mutely up at him, and then looks down, finally acquiescing. "If I bring you Bella, you have to promise not to hurt them," he says. "Any of them. You let them all go, including Jacob."_

_"Oh? You really think Bella is worth that much to us?" Aro laughs. "We're going to kill the werewolf, regardless of her death or not. He murdered one of our own."_

_It feels, suddenly, like the room has gone freezing cold. "No," Edward says, lips numb. "You can't."_

_Aro arches a brow. "Can't we?"_

_"No," Edward repeats._

_"What else do you have to offer, Edward?" Aro asks, still smiling. "What do you have that we could want?"_

_Edward sneers back at him, but feels fear sliding around his neck, heavy as a noose. "My life," he says. "My life for the werewolf's."_

_Aro's smile turns huge, stretching out his translucently pale skin. "You would trade your own life? After over a century of youth, you would willingly step into the void?"_

_"It's what I'm offering," Edward says. _

_"Interesting," Aro says, studying him. "Very interesting. You know, I would've accepted having you work for us, but this is so much better. You're quite the martyr, aren't you, my dear boy? Quite an admirable trait."_

_Aro stands up, dusting off the front of his robes. "Your offer is definitely accepted. It was a pleasure doing business with you, Edward."_

-

Dawn is coming. Edward can see the road ahead of him, long and beckoning, and for the first time, the sight doesn't terrify him. The night is almost over.

Rain lashes against the windows, streaking silver down the glass, and he doesn't think of Bella or Jacob or Alice, any of the people he's leaving behind; all he can see now is the empty stretch of highway, the miles he must cross before the sun rises again.

The road calls to him, littered with empty promises and wasted years.

Edward starts the car.

-

you and me  
we're in this together now

none of them can stop us now  
we will make it through somehow

you and me  
if the world should break in two

until the very end of me  
until the very end of you

-

**THE END**

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Thank you all SO MUCH for your support and reviews and recommending this to people, it really warms my heart. I'm sorry if you guys didn't like the final scene, but...it was never meant to end happily. Haha. Sorry.

Maybe Jacob comes after him, though. Then they move to Canada and bake cookies. The real end.


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